m -Uod i FATI IN ON: “MOSLEM MENTALIT
A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO MOSLEMS
By L. LEVONIAN, B.A., M.R.AS.
Dean of the School of Religion at Athens; . Sormerly of Constantinople; Fellow of Woodbrooke, England
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LONDON "a. W GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD ` I" MUSEUM STREET |
First published in 1928
(All vights reserved)
Printed in Great Britain by Unwin Brothers, Ltd., Woking
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DEDICATED TO J. RENDEL HARRIS
s MY CONSTANT TEACHER AND FRIEND
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NOTE
Wuite this book was in the press, great changes have taken place in the. Turkish Constitution. The most important of these is the cancelling of that article in the Constitution which read “The religion of the Turkish Republic is Islam.” Thus at last religion and State are separated from that close union which has been from the very first a feature of Islamic theory and practice. |
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INTRODUCTION
| THE problem of the Moslem and the Christian in the Near East is very old. Christianity originated in the | | Near East, and so did Islam, and the people have been kept in two antagonistic groups ever since. This has been the root cause of many disturbances in the past and at the present time, and if there is to be any peace in these lands, this problem of the Moslem and the Christian will have to be solved. Political solutions do ‘not touch the root of the matter, therefore they cannot produce a right solution. There is an immense difference in the mentalities of the Moslem and the Christian, and a way must be found to bring about a great change ‘n this respect. We believe that this can be done through a new understanding of Jesus Christ, His life and mes- sage. Therefore this study calls for a new presentation of the Christian religion to the Moem peoples of the Near East, and here lies the justification of the Christian Missionary and International Service in these lands. The ideas expressed in this book are not the outcome of reading books in the European libraries, written by Western authors. There is much that has been done in that way, and we have a great amount of literature n our hands, especially presenting the political side of the problem. The present writer wants to present the ntellectual, social, and religious sides of the problem, basing his studies on what he has actually seen and
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ast; he served as Professor of Turkish Literature for | fourteen years in one of the Colleges in the Near East; he has taught three years in a Moslem Government | High School, where all the other tutors and pupils ' were Moslems; and he has had close contact through- | out with the indigenous Christians, the Moslems, and | the Missionary organizations. So this book is the out- | come of his personal experiences and observations, and the ideas expressed in it are his personal convictions.
It will be noted that only Moslem sources have been | used in this study. Instead of merely giving our view | of the Moslem mentality, we have let the Moslems | _ speak for themselves. We have chosen typical passages | from the Moslem authors, past and present, and have. translated them verbally as far as possible. That is perhaps the most characteristic aspect of this book, | and the quotations are the most important part of it. |
Our aim has been practical rather than academic. Somehow a reconciliation ought to be brought about | among the peoples of the Near East, and we hope that | this book will contribute to a deeper understanding of their problems, and thus help toward a greater efficiency | in the Christian service in these lands. Enough blood has been shed in the past, and much effort has been! misdirected ; there still remains the Way of Jesus Christ, which was proclaimed in those lancs many centuries, ago. The task before all who are in earnest for peace aud reconciliation among these peoples is to apply that Way to all these baffling problems. Human resources may fall short, but love never faileth!
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of the material was given as lectures at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A., but for the honour extended to me by the Woodbrooke Fellowship Com- mittee in awarding me an Edward Cadbury Research Fellowship. During my residence at Woodbrooke I
"have enjoyed the leisure and found the healthy
atmosphere to think my material over, to, put my data ogether into natural order, and to present them in the ight spirit. Mr. H. G. Wood, Mr. W. F. Halliday, Vir. W. E. Wilson, and other members of the staff of he Selly Oak Colleges, and President Ernest Pye of the
school of Religion, have greatly helped me by their.
ympathy, by reading my manuscript, and by various uggestions. I want especially to acknowledge Miss Mary Pumphrey’s assistance in reading the whole aper and suggesting corrections in-the language.
I cannot close without thanking Mr. Edward Cad- yury for his generosity in making this Fellowship sossible, and especially for his deep interest in the vhole problem of peace and reconciliation in Moslem ands. His personal interviews and friendship have been 1 great stimulus to me in pursuing these studies.
I take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the generous assistance of the Bible Lands Missions” Aid Society, 76 Strand, London, W.C., which enables the book to be issued at a lower price than otherwise would be possible.
L. LEVONIAN.
WoopBROOKE, ENGLAND,
February 15, 1928.
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CONTENTS
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| INTRODUCTION o o o a ° o o ° | HAPTER
| I. THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY è ; A : í í
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V.
V,
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY——A CRITICISM
THE MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION , SR
The Moslem attitude to the Non-Moslems; quotations from the chief Turkish and Arab historians: Ashiq Pasha Zadé, Naima, Refig, Tabari. The attitude toward women. Moslem Ethics ; Al-Ghazali. Concluding remarks.
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY ° . ° . e
Quotations from modern writers: Abel Adam; Djelal Nouri; Refiq Sidqi (the abolition of the Caliphate).
Modern Nationalism, Modern Education, and Modern Laws examined with regard to their motives. The moral weakness of the modern mentality. Quotations from representative Moslem writers.
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Orthodox Islam: its ordinances for prayer; its defi- nition of Islam. Efforts for reformation and the failure of compromise in the past. The radical criticism of Islam by Moslem thinkers. Quotations from prominent writers. Concluding remarks,
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MOSLEMS IN CONTACT WITH ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS ‘
Influence of Christians over Moslems; social customs, education. The National feature of the Oriental Christ- ianity ; its materialistic interpretation of history.
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15
47
77
194
146
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MOSLEM MENTALITY GL ER
MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES IN MOSLEM LANDS . . ‘ 162
Four main ideas contributed by the Missionaries: sense of Law, of individuality, of the supremacy of character (Protestant movement), and of Internationalism. Lack of democratic spirit of the’ Missions; their principles and methods of Education. Some suggestions.
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VI. THE MISSIONARY PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE MOSLEMS . tee 7 5 3 ; PLO Books written by Missionaries: Dr. Pfander’s Balance
of Truth; the Rouse tracts, Roots and Branches. Ahmed I Midhat’s answer. The criticism of the presentation of
4 the Idea of God, the Doctrine of Christ, and the emphasis P ‘ on the mysterious in the past. Ä 4
Vill. THE REAL ISSUES BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY, 20 I
A study of the ideas of God, Revelation, Prophecy, and Religion in Islam and Christianity. Jesus and the Jews „~ in controversy.
IX. THE EMPHASIS NEEDED AT THE PRESENT TIME . » 21
Loyalty to truth, sacredness of the human personality, À solidarity of humanity, and love in human relationships, e to be presented as principles essential for all life. Gon- 2 cluding remarks, Religion and civilization. 7
X. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . . . e` < « 293. °° 7 We must speak to the conditions of men. A plea for Reconciliation. The way of Jesus. eee stn dian (he aN om CN nir Coj Co
CHAPTER I
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY— ITS ANALYSIS | Tae Ottoman historian, Ashiq Pasha Zadê, begins his history of the Ottoman Empire, written in the fifteenth entury A.D. in a Turkish dialect, by using the term Sjafir (Infidel) for the Christians, and keeps it all _hrough the book. For example, on page 3, he says : | The Kiafirs did not obey the Moslems.” This state- aent is very typical in showing the Moslem mentality f the time. It assumes that the Moslems are superior, 1at the Christians are inferior, and that the Christians ught to obey the Moslems. Again, speaking about a vhristian in Bilejik in Asia Minor, he says: ‘There was 1 Kiafir called Ayanikola.” He uses the term Kiafir (Infidel) unconsciously as the proper term for a Christ- an. Then in a poem in honour of Osman he starts with this couplet:
l Osman girded himself with the sword of Religion
| To make Islam manifest everywhere; As the darkness of Kufr had occupied all Anatolia, Osman wished to fill the world with light.
| = Ashiq Pasha Zadê’s Turkish History covers from Ottoman begin- mings up to a certain point in Bazazid the Second’s reign, and was completed in 908 A.u. (1502 A.D.). See Ashiq Pasha Zadé, Larikhi, (Constantinople, 1322 A.H. (1904, A.D.),
m T MOSLEM MENTALITY Gi; Ra Jif another place, speaking about the early
~ of Osman on the Highlands of Anatolia, he says: “The
ruler of Karadjahissar had a brother named Kalanos. He had many soldiers. The Kiafirs of Ineguel also) combined with him. There was very hard fighting. Osman’s brother, Sarouyati, was martyred. Kiafir Kalanos also fell on the field. Then Osman said ‘Open the belly of that dog and bury him in earth as a dog’; and it was done” (p. 7).
In the poem following the description of this battle our historian says:
The sword of Islam attacked the Kiafirs; the cry of “Allah i great” resounded everywhere. The Paradise of God is under the shadow of swords; This is. the message of the Prophet, “Allah“is Great.” Churches and bells were destroyed; they became places for th religion of Islam; “Allah is Great” (p. 8).
After this poem he describes the battle as follows “As soon as this word reached Sultan Aladdin, and he heard what the Kiafirs had done to the Moslems anc to Osman Ghazi, he gave orders to the soldiers to march: They attacked Karadjahissar and occupied it. He gave the houses in the city to the soldiers (Ghazis), and he turned it into a town of Moslems. Then they atiacen the Tartars in that neighbourhood and defeated them also, and cut their bladders and sewed the skin on felt, | and made canopies ” (p. 9).
Again, speaking about a royal wedding of the ale of Bilejik, he tells how Osman shows cleverness and) arrests them all, beheads the ruler of Bilejik, andl
If HE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY ss] aves most of the people in the wedding party;
Derg aut
attacks eN also, plunders everything, kills the ruler, slaughters all males, and makes the females slaves
(p. 16).
1
On page 16 he says: “In Karshissar there were many
yhurches, and they were transformed into Mosques. Also he changed the Sunday, and they decided to offer worship on Friday.” In another paragraph he describes the capture of Salonika by Sultan Mourad (833 4.H.— 1430 A.D.) : “The Sultan asked his Vezirs: “Is this place called Salonika far away?’ The Vezirs replied: “Four days’ journey from Syros. Then the Sultan said: * Why should you wait?’ and he gave orders to march, They fought several days, but they could not capture the city. Then the Sultan called his Vezirs and said: ‘Pashas! you must find a way to capture this fort.’ One of the Vezirs named Ali said: ‘My excellent Sultan, give it to plunder and we shall capture it.’ Then the Sultan said: ‘This city is given to plunder.’ As ‘soon as the Ghazis (soldiers) heard the word of plunder, they attacked the fortifications and captured the city. They took much spoil. Tha y enslaved the Kiafirs. The houses were left empty, and they gave them to whoever wanted them. They made the land of Kiafir a land of Islam *%/x..*-18), One might quote other passag<’ from the book, but these are cane to show the metalit vf the meitro and his time. The Moslems are GF zis, noble warriors of Islam, the true religion; the Christians are Kiafirs, Infidels. The Moslems plunder ; s the Christians are plundered—a thing which is right and just. When they B
MOSLEM MENTALITY
di¢<the Moslems are “martyred,” the Christian
slaughtered.” This idea of Kiafir, or Giavour as in ordinary language, is at the back of the Moslem attitude towards the Christians. It dominates all their dealings. The term “‘Giavour,” whatever its etymology may be, is a word of shameful contempt, and is used even to-day
everywhere in the Near East by Moslems for Christians sic It means infidel, mean, low, a ‘dog, slave, destined for)
slaughter. It has not merely the religious meaning of one who denies some doctrines of the true religion; it has a very low social meaning. In September of 1915, when I was being sent under guard to Ourfal as prisoner, in crossing over the Euphrates, we saw the floating corpse of a man killed on the highlands of
_Asia Minor and cast into the river. As soon as the
Moslem guards saw this, they said: “Here is the corpse of a slave, a Giavour.” In fact, after crossing the
river into Mesopotamia, I saw that the words Giavour
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and slave were the only words used for Christians. The Christians were Giavours and slaves. Their property, their honour, their lives were at the disposal of the Moslen+- This mentality, consciously or un- consciously, has dominated all Moslem activities in the Near East in the past.
Let us take another Turhish historian: the Turkish
tagan. àn hie well-kyswn historical work of six volumes, describing the evei of those times, calls the Christians
: Naima died in 1228 a.n. (1716 A.v.). He was Tashrifatji at the Sultan’s Palace for some years, during which time also he was engaged in writing history. His history embraces events between 1000 and
1070 A.HL, the seventy years particularly (1592-1960 a.p.),
~~. court historian Naim ,* who lived about two ‘cedturies”~
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY (Sj
the war of the Turks ith the VER he says:
“There was war with the Kuffar of Venice. He uses the word Kuffar quite innocently. There can be no other name for the Christians. It is so all through his writings. In a copy of his history printed at Constanti- nople in 1283 A.H., in the introduction, pp. 7—10, the ~ rise of the Ottoman Empire is described as follows: “By the eternal order of Allah Sultan Osman became _king and founder of the Ottoman Empire. From that — day on the glory of the Moslems and the power of the people of Faith have been increasing all the time. His successors until this day, in order to lift up the Word of Unity (the Moslem Creed), have drawn their sword and destroyed the polytheists (Mushrik) wherever they found them. They have illuminated many countries under the sway of Polytheism and Atheism with the light of Islam. They have sacrificed themselves in the path of the Apostle and overcome all difficulties and perils. They have become ‘the inheritors of the earth,’ as the Holy Koran says: ‘As we have written in Zebur (Psalter), My righteous servants shall inherit the earth.’.The armies of the Ottomans following the order of the Holy Verse, ‘Massacre the Mushriks all as they massacre you all,’ have made haste to fulfil the duty of the Holy War (Djihad). The enemies who were associates in the worship of idols or of the cross, united together according to the word ‘Infidels are all one and the same people,’ and have made severe attacks, but they have been beaten down always by the religious zeal of the Ottoman soldiers,”
MOSLEM MENTALITY |
4cv use take a modern Moslem writer, named Béy,? who in his book on The Holy Wars of the Prophet, printed at Constantinople 1324 A.H. (1906 A.D.), speaking about the wars carried on by the Ottomans, says: “The Ottoman army has attained its victories through Ottomanism and Islam. Islam has produced all the best virtues of war, and Ottomanism all the qualities of courage. The highest Islamic virtues are the foundations of the highest qualities of the warrior, „and the Ottomans have adopted the methods of ‘the wars of the Prophet in all their military activities”? (p. 6). “The religion of Islam has been the only guide
~ ofthe Ottoman warriors” (p. 74). ;
After saying that Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran have been the sole basis of the Ottoman laws, Ahmed Kefiq Bey goes on to explain the methods and principles of war in Islam. We give below some passages from the first chapter of the book, as it shows the mind of a Turkish Moslem and throws much light on the origin of this mentality in Islam. Discussing the wars of the Prophet, he says: “About two years after the Hejirah (Flight), the Prophet gave permission to wage war against the infidels (Kiafirs); so he sent parties to attack the caravans, and they returned triumphant, which again increased the desire to war. Then the Prophet recited such verses as relate to war in Islam, ‘Fight and kill those who fight and kill you. Whosoever fights with the enemy for Allah’s sake, or is martyred,
_* Ahmed Refig Bey is a Professor in the history department of the University of Stamboul, and has written many volumes on Turkish history. He has served also as President of the History Commission at Constantinople for many years.
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY
attains victories, Allah shall reward him grea Moslems! for the guarding of the religion of Islam, war is a duty laid upon you. Killing men may seem unpleasant to you, but you must know that the things which may not seem pleasant to you are most useful and good for you. The reward of war is victory and wealth in this world, and the blessings of paradise in the next world. O believers! fight with sincerity of heart and purpose, because Allah created you for the success of the religion of Islam.’ ”
Then he quotes some sayings of the Prophet which he says “have given an eternal sanctity to the honour of militarism”: “I have been sent by the Almighty in these last days with the sword. I myself and my nation shall not let the sword quit our hands until people worship Allah. My sustenance depends on the sword. All who do not obey my command shall be subdued and humiliated. The gates of the highest paradise are under the shadow of the sword. The nearest to the Prophet in degree are those who war for Islam. To fight once for the sake of Allah is more acceptable than going on pilgrimage forty times. The highest deed of the believer is to fight the enemies of religion and the state ” (p. 18).
“The Moslem warriors, animated by these holy verses, have won bright victories over their enemies,” says Ahmed Refiq Bey. On page 29 he gives some more quotations from the Prophet: “If ye are believers, do not be anxious or afraid of the calamities of war. Death can reach a person only through the will and decree of Allah as it has been predestined in his Hidden
MOSLEM MENTALITY G,
. Even if ye hide yourselves in the most fortifie ce death shall overtake you. Martyrdom by the sword atones for all sins. With Allah, there is no drop more beloved and honoured than the drop of blood shed for the sake of Allah.” In the eighth year of the Hejirah, when the Prophet started for the battle of Mutah in Syria, he spoke the following words: “O warriors of Islam! Fight the enemies of religion in Syria and lift high the fame of Islam” (p. 49). “If a man’s feet are soiled for one hour in the Holy War, those feet can never be sent to hell” (p. 52). “Thus military service became a sacred religious duty for ~ Moslems,” says Refiq Bey. ““To watch on duty one night during war time is preferable to fasting. and praying one thousand nights. The fires of hell cannot touch such a watchful eye” (p. 58). “If a man turns back in flight during war, he shall deserve the wrath of God, and his place shall be the terrible hell” (p. 66). With régard to the spoils taken in war, the Prophet said: “One-fifth of the spoils taken from the Kuffar (Infidels) belongs to Allah, the Apostle, and his family, the orphan and the Moslem poor.” It was always done so, and the rest of the spoil was divided among ‘the warriors. “Spoils of war are lawful (halal) according to the Koran” (p. 68). “The Prophet never fought an enemy who accepted. Islam. The Moslems when they besieged a town or a castle, first of all invited the inhabitants to become Moslems. Ibn Abbas relates of the Prophet that when he began to fight a people, he invited them always first to accept Islam. If they did so, he did not kill them, because by their acceptance
To a for war. The Beales ised to say, ‘I have come to fight the people until they confess the Creed of Unity. As soon as they confess it, their blood becomes unlawful to me.’ If they refused to accept Islam, the Prophet obliged them to pay the tribute (Jizya)” (p. 69).
After relating some other things about the wars of Mohammed, Refiq Bey concludes: “‘It is clear that the Osmanlis have followed the Prophetic methods of war in their military activities, and the religion of Islam has been the one guiding principle of the Ottoman warriors ”’ (p. 74). It is very significant indeed to hear these statements from a person who has held the highest chair in history at the University, and who has made such a thorough study of the Ottoman history. It shows the old Moslem mentality clearly.
We are not concerned essentially in this study with the historical problem as to what the aitititde of Mohammed actually was to other peoples, but rather to show the sum-total of the effect of Mohammed’s attitude and teaching upon the minds of the Moslems in the past generation, and here in these books by Turkish historians and writers we see clearly what that effect has been. There is no use in quoting some nice verses from the Koran or the Hadith (the Tra- dition) to prove that Islam is a religion of compassion and love, and Mohammed is-a preacher of peace and good will. It is a well-known fact that neither the Prophet nor the Koran are consistent in their teaching as to what the attitude of the Moslems ought to be
oe | MOSLEM MENTALITY GI, -\ Swards the non-Moslems. For example, there is
verse as “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (ch. ii, 256), a verse which has been often quoted by the modern defenders of Islam; and another verse even promising reward to the non-Moslems in the _ next life (ii. 59); but these verses have been abrogated by verses like (iii. 79), which condemn all non-Moslems: “Whoso desireth any other religion than Islam, that religion shall never be accepted from him, and in the next world he shall be among those who perish.” The _reasọn of this inconsistency in the Koran is to be found - in the fact that Mohammed began first with the hope of winning the Jews and the Christians together with the Arabs, and thus he was very lenient in his attitude, but later, when he found that impossible, and even saw opposition from them, he began to declare severe judgment upon all non-Moslems. Ibn Abidin says:
‘‘Know thou that the command of fighting was revealed by degrees: for the Prophet was at first commanded to deliver his message: then to discuss and dispute and endeavour to convince the unbelievers by arguments: then the Believers were permitted to fight: then they were commanded to fight at first at any time, except the sacred months: then absolutely without any exception.: This inconsistency in the Prophet’s own life and the teaching of the Koran has caused much havoc in Moslem lands in the relationship of the Moslems and the non-Moslems. There is no doubt that the total effect of Mohammed’s teaching upon
t Ibn Abidin, ii. 297-298. (Quoted also in Klein’s Religion of Islam, p. 174.)
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY
Aoslems has been to invoke a spirit of war an iting the non-Moslems until they are humiliated. The principles have been in the subconsciousness of the Moslems and have guided them in their relation- ships with others. They have been inspired by such verses as: “O Believers! take not the Jews and the Christians as friends; they are but one another's friends. If any one of you taketh them for his friends, he surely is one of them” (ch. v. 56); or, “Verily, they are guilty of unbelief who say God is the Messiah, the son of Mariam, who say God is one of three” (ch. v. 76). It is evident that this verse, in one stroke, relegates Christians to the status of unbelievers, and brings them under all the curses of Kufr. Again, “Fight against those who do not believe in God, nor in the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His Apostle forbid, nor practise the true religion, from among those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tribute (Jizya) out of hand, and be humbled. The JeWs say that Uzair is the son of God, and the Christians say that the Messiah is the son of God. . . . God fight against them” (ch. ix. 29).
Tabari, the greatest Moslem source for the early history of Islam, speaking about the victories of the Prophet as a sign of his prophetic calling, in his book, The Book of Religion and Empire, makes the following remarkable statement: “When Mohammed noticed that they were rejecting his order, thinking evil of him, and not entering willingly into the religion and grace of God, he made them enter into it by force; his claim thus triumphed, and the Arabs, one and all, submitted
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_It is one of the ironies of history that Tabari is using for force exactly the same Arabic term which has been used in the Koran, ii. 256. That verse reads: “Let there be no compulsion (Ikrah) in religion,’ and the Ahma- diya Koran, commenting on this verse, says: “To all the nonsense which is being talked about the Prophet offering Islam and sword as alternatives to pagan Arabs, this verse is a sufficient answer.” Whereas Tabari is using the same word in his statement, ““‘He made them enter into it by force (Kerhen).”
-This statement of Tabari reminds me of an event _ during the Great War, which shows the same mentality still existing in Islam. During the early years of the war, most of the Christian people of a big town in Asia Minor had been deported and killed in the deserts. The remaining people in the town were in great terror, and there was a movement among them to become Moslems to save their lives. Many began to send petitions to the Government declaring that they wanted to surrender themselves into the bosom of Islam of their own free will. An assembly of the leading Moslems was called to consider this matter and give a decision. Some laymen remarked that these people were asking to become Moslems mainly because of-fear, and there would be no meaning in accepting their petitions. However, one chief Hojah said: “Yes,
that is true; but most people who have embraced
t The Book of Religion and Empire, Tabari. Translated by Mingana, P- 57.
MOSLEM MENTALITY SL d. . . . Then the new religion became dea
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THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY G
because of fear have made very good Moslems
It would be very interesting to make a survey of the Moslem conquest and rule in countries outside of Arabia. There are documents published by the Moslem conquerors and Caliphs giving a fair view of their attitude toward the non-Moslems. It will be good to quote a few of these documents in this connection. For example, we have the interesting order issued by Iyad bin Ghanam, the conqueror of Raqqa. When bis armies raided the district of Raqqa in upper Meso- potamia, the people from the country took refuge within the walls of the city. They made some resistance, - but afterwards were obliged to surrender. Then the Moslem commander, Iyad bin Ghanam, sent the following letter of security to the people of Raqqa: “In the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate. This is what Iyad bin Ghanam grants to Raqqa on the day on which he enters it: he grants them security for themselves, their goods, and their churches, which will not be destroyed or occupied if they pay the Jizya which is due from them, and do not make any new treacherous uprising. He commands also that they do not build a new church or place of worship, and do not use publicly any bell or Easter celebration or cross. ‘God is witness, and in Him is sufficiency as witness’’? (quoted in Bell’s Origin of Islam, pp. 171 Ee); g
There is the famous document known as “The Cove- nant of Omar,” which is often mentioned by historians. It occurs in several forms differing slightly from each
tection,”’ or Dror They should not ists the Koran, nor Mohammed, nor Islam. They should not marry a Moslem woman. They should not attempt to convert a Moslem or injure ‘him. They should not assist the enemy nor harbour ships. Any Dhimmy committing any of these offences became, an outlaw and his life was “free,” at the disposal of the Moslems. There were these conditions also : they should wear distinctive clothing, a yellow patch on their dress, and a girdle (Zannar). They should not build houses higher than those of the Moslems. They should not ride horses, but mules or asses. Anyone breaking these regulations was punished.
It is a question whether this document was actually and fully promulgated by Omar I, the Caliph, but we know that Omar II executed some of these orders,? He forbade all non-Moslems to lay aside the turban, | ordered them not to use riding-saddles or horses, but only pack-saddles. He forbade them to wear silk clothes, and ordered them to cut the hair on their foreheads. It is recorded that Banu Thalaba came to him and said they were Christians, and asked what they were to do. Omar sent for a barber, cut the hair on their foreheads, cut strips from their mantles to make girdles, and told them to use only pack-saddles ` and to ride sideways (Mustatraf, 1. 125).
ı Cf. Mustatraf, i. 124. Also Abn Asakir, i. 149,178. Cf. also Muir’s The Caliphate, pp. 136 f. 2 Of. Ikdul Faris, ii. 339.
HE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY GI tun al Rashid, in 191 A.H. (808 A.D.) forbade the istians in Bagdad to be like the Moslems in dress and manner of riding (Tabari, iii. 713). But the most famous edict is that of Mutawakkil, 235 A.H. (850 A.D.). The. great Arab historian Tabari gives it in full;
“And in that year Mutawakkil commanded that Christians and all other non-Moslems under Moslem rule should wear honey-coloured hoods, and girdles of a special kind, different from those worn by the Moslems ; that they should use wooden saddles with two balls at the. back; that those of them who wore caps of a colour different from those worn by Moslems should put two buttons on them; that their slaves should have two pieces of honey-coloured cloth, about four inches long, one on the front and one on the back of every article of their outer garments, and when any of them wore a turban it must be honey-coloured. Also when any of their women went out, they must wear honey- coloured Izars. And he (Mutawakkil) also commanded that their slaves should wear the Zannars, or the non- Moslem girdles, and forbade them to wear the Mantakas or girdles worn by Moslems; and he commanded that their newly built places of worship should be pulled down, and that one-tenth of their houses should be taken and a Mosque built in the space, if large enough, but if not, then it shouid be left as an open space; and he commanded that on their doors should be nailed images of devils made of wood in order to distinguish between their houses and those of the Moslems. He ordered that they should not be employed as assistants in the Diwans or any of the Royal offices
upon Moslems, and that their children should not study in Moslem schools or be taught by Moslem teachers. He forbade them to use the figure of the Cross on Palm Sunday, nor were they allowed to carry candles. in the street. And he commanded that their graves should be level with the ground, lest they should resemble those of the Moslems.’’t | We find these orders strictly followed in other dis- éricts under the Moslem rule also. Al Hakim, the mad Caliph of Egypt ordered the non-Moslems to wear black only. He ordered Christians to wear crosses, and the Jews bulls’ heads. They might not wear rings on the right hand. If they transgressed any of these rules they were punished with banishment. Some denied their faith and became Moslems. Many went into exile rather than obey such rules. Those who remained in Egypt and were faithful to their religion began to wear crosses of gold and silver. Then the Caliph ordered the crosses to be of wood only, and five rottles in weight. When the Christians went to public baths they had to wear their crosses 2 (Abu’l Mahasin, ii. 64). One may ask, if these were the rules of the Caliphs
T
of Islam, why were they not executed in Moslem
countries always? The explanation is not difficult, if one knows the Moslem mentality. There is a cushion called Mindar on which the Moslem Judges used to sit. ` In olden days, when there were no official archives,
t Cf, Tabari, iii. 1989, 1390,
2 Cf, the article, “Islam and the Protected Religions,” by A. S]
Tritton, July 1927, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
})
; MOSLEM MENTALITY SI 4. they would be in a position to execute judg i
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY Gy, e kept his papers under this cushion or Mindavs
fhé-wanted to follow up an order, he took the order from under the cushion and executed it. In other times he kept it under the cushion. So there is the saying in Turkish: “To keep under the cushion.” It means to put aside a thing temporarily. Of course, it depended a great deal on the personal temperament of the ruler.
A Moslem came once to visit Egypt in the eighth century of the Hejirah, when these rules were not strictly executed. He saw a Christian riding on horse- back, with footmen in front and attendants behind. He was disgusted by the pomp displayed by this - Christian, and consequently the Christians were bidden to observe the Covenant of Omar (Mak. ii... 498). We have examples of this even in modern times. Until just two generations ago the Christians in Asia Minor were not allowed to ride on horses. Even if a Christian rode on a mule and met a notable Moslem on the street, he ought to dismount immediately and Walk. Again, the Christians were not allowed to wear dresses with bright colours. They had to wear a rough home-made clothing of dark blue colour. They were not allowed to build two-story houses, houses higher than those of the Moslems. A Moslem in a Christian quarter ruled almost everything. He was the Moslem, and the Others were Christians. It was his to rule, and the Christians had to be submissive. The whole Islamic law is very interesting from this point of view.
The Islamic Canon Law, the Shariah, is God’s Law, and cannot be changed, and must cover all, life, per- sonal, ritual, commercial, civil, and foreign politics.
Adidam. According to the Shariah, no testimony of a | Christian is valid in the Moslem ecclesiastical courts. These courts deal with all the problems of inheritance and legacies. A Christian could be listened to in these courts, but the testimony of a Christian can have no legal validity in deciding a case. One single Moslem’s — testimony is sufficient to nullify the testimony of one thousand Christians. One can imagine how awkward this has made things for the Christians in Moslem lands. The Christians were always obliged to secure the signature or testimony of at least two Moslems on a ~ deed in order to make it legally binding. How much of bribery and deceit and injustice this has caused in the | past is known to all the Christians who have lived under the Moslem rule. A wealthy and honourable Christian had to go to beg an ordinary Moslem to come and to put his signature as a witness to a deed. His testimony as a Christian was not valid, because he was a Christian. The Moslems in later years have been obliged to adopt some of the Ahkiam, as the commercial laws, etc., but on the theory that the Shariah can never be abolished, but can be put aide for the time and not be-executed. Now Islamic Canon Law, the Shariah, divides the world into two: one, the Moslem world, called Dar-ul- Islam, Abode of Islam; and the second, the outside world, called Dar-ul-Harb, Abode of War. In the first - are all the Moslems; they are at peace. In the second are all outside Islam, and Islam is at war with them. In the end, Dar-ul-Harb must disappear into Dar-ul- Islam. It has been a serious question with Moslems
Ms THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY “i GI Ate Ale: ine with whom Islam is and should be at i
jever, it is fair to say that Islam has allowed Christian and Jewish small communities to exist, but has regarded them as conquered communities without citizenship. They are called Dhimmy, which means they are under the protection oath. They are to remain tributary under Islam. They must not aspire to full citizenship; they must remain inferior and obey: whenever they aspire to full freedom, they shall have lost their right to protection and revert to the status of enemies; they become outlaw, and their blood and goods become ‘“‘free,” that is, legitimate plunder for Moslems. This is the mentality underlying the massacres of the Christians in Moslem lands, and it has gone very deep down in the Moslem mind.
The principle of land tenure in Moslem lands is very illuminating in this respect. When the Moslem armies invaded a country, the villagers and the country people naturally all fled into the towns to protect themselves. Thus the Moslem armies occupied first the villages and the country places, and then be- sieged the towns. Eventually the towns also capitu- lated. Thus the land in the country, the villages, and the towns remained in the hands of the Moslem invaders, and they claimed to have taken it by force. The basic principle is that the land belongs to the Moslem by the right ofinvasion. Iyad bin Ghanam, the conqueror of Raqqa, said to the people: “Tke land belongs to us; we have set foot on it and secured it.” Some years ago I was walking out in the fields, and I saw our Moslem neighbour ploughing a field in the
G
~ «I þought this land at the time of the invasion of ‘the Moslem armies, when Mohammed set his foot on this place.’ Exactly the same mentality as thirteen centuries ago! ~“
The Moslem warriors occupied the land, but they did not and could not cultivate it all, so they were obliged to go back to the Christians, asking them to undertake the work. The idea was to secure revenue for the State. Thus the Moslem rulers gave part of the land back to the Christians, but with the distinct understanding that it belonged to them, and that the Christians had a right of cultivation only. The Christ- ians had to pay the land tax (kharaj) to show that
the land belonged to the Moslems, and they were `
merely holders on trust. In Turkey most of the land
is in this category, and it is called “Arazi Miriye,” -
which means ‘Crown land, belonging to the Emir, the State.” It is not freehold land. The holder of the title deed to such a land has the right to use and cultivate it only, but no right of ownership. Therefore the holder can be deprived of it any time on the pretext that he had left it uncultivated for a long while, usually three years. Part of the property belonging to an American College in Turkey was occupied by the Governor of the city on that pretext. This mentality, consciously or unconsciously, was behind the action of the Govern- ments of the Party of Union and Progress during the
war, when they deported all the Christians into the ġ
desert and confiscated their houses and farms. It
if ( <y \2\ THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY GL ka are ated also the Kemalist Government after the w
Se 2
they expelled all Christians from Turkey and
pantured their properties. According to the Moslem
law this was quite right. A Christian had no right to the free ownership of the land.
Let us study the old Moslem mentality in its attitude towards women and family life. I have in my hand a Turkish book printed at Constantinople about twenty years ago, 1324 A.H. (1906 A.D.), and sanctioned by the department of the Sheih-al-Islam, the highest office in Turkey in matters of Moslem canonical law, and also approved by the Ministry of Education at that time.t The book deals specially with the problem of marriage and divorce in Islam. I shall simply quote verbatim from this book to show the Moslem mentality with regard to women.
“Polygamy and divorce are allowed in the religion of Islam. . . . Polygamy is a facility for men> also for women, as there are more women than men in the world. . Those who object to polygamy do not restrict ihemmbelves to one wife. . . . Those who object to divorce wish it in their tarts “is Gene writer means the Christians, of course.) The differ- ence is here only that polygamy is legalized in Islam’ (p. 7).
“In the religion of Islam there are two ways of marriage; one is Tasarri, that is, to use a slave woman as one’s own legal concubine; the other is by wedding a woman as one’s wife. There is not a third way. (One would like to ask, Could there be a third way?)
* Munakehat ve Mufarakat, Constantinople, 1324 A.u, (1906 A.D.).
_ MOSLEM MENTALITY GSI „Every Moslem of ability may take into l
nage as many women as he likes and may marry 1 four wives. . . in taking women into concubinage there | is no need for marriage. Marriage is a contract by which a man possesses the use of woman to enjoy her”’ (p. 12).
“Ifa married man wants to marry another wife or to take concubines, and his already existing wife objects to it, and even says, ‘I shall kill myself if you take concubines or other wives,’ the man may not listen to her, because he has the right to take concu- bines, and to marry other wives by the Holy Word of the Koran: ‘Marry what seems nice to you of women, by twoes, threes, fours.” (iv. 3) (p. 34).
“A Moslem may marry a Christian woman or a Jewess, and may forbid her attending the Church or the Synagogue. A Moslem woman may never be given im marriage to a non-Moslem” (p. 40).
“A woman divorced three times from her husband may not re-marry the old husband, unless she is first given in marriage to another man and divorced by
him.” (This is called Hulleh, and is one of the worst aspects of Moslem marriage.) It is sanctioned by the Koran, ch. ii. 229 f.: ““Ye may divorce your wives twice. . .. But if a husband divorces her a third time, it is not lawful for him to take her again, until she shall have married another husband, and if he also divorce her, then shall no blame attach to them if they return to each other.”
Pages 97-108 in this book deal with the marriage of the non-Moslems. ‘The title of the chapter is significant, it is called: “‘Enkihihei Kuffar,’ which means ‘““The
ee a
Alloying
“A Moslem man may marry a Christian woman or a Jewess, but not an idolatress. But a Moslem woman may never be given into marriage to a non- Moslem.”
“If a Christian man marries a Moslem woman they are separated by force, and the woman and the man and intermediaries are punished by law.”
“A man must deal fairly with his wives. He must spend equal number of days and nights with each of them. He must not give one’s turn to another” (p. 109).
“The veiling of the women is for the safe-guarding of their honour. Women are always subject to the ageression of men, so the best way for women is to veil themselves. In their homes, women should not appear but to their husbands and their own family circle, and when they go out, they should cover their faces, their whole body, from head to feet, ant even their dresses. To open their faces in the streets or to show their arms or dresses is against the Moslem law. Veiling is a Koranic order” (p. 121).
“A husband may even forbid his wife to eat garlic or onions or to smoke and to eat or drink things the- odour of which may be disagreeable to the husband” (p. 117).
“A husband may forbid his wife ae others or going to weddings” (p. 120).
With regard to divorce in Islam, the bows says:
“There is no need of witnesses in divorcing a wife”
(p. 119).
MOSLEM MENTALITY
man may divorce his wife twice and re- but after divorcing her a third time, he may not re-marry her unless she is first given in marriage to another husband, and divorced by him” (p. 237).
“Divorce may be oral or written. To say to the wife: "You are divorced from me,’ or, ‘I have divorced you,’ _ is sufficient for divorce. Words like, ‘Go to your house,’ or, “Your halter is on your neck,’ or, ‘Get away from me, or, ‘Cover your head, or, ‘Go seek another ‘husband for yourself,’ or, ‘Go to hell,’ or, “You are like pork to me,’ etc., depend on the intention of the husband. in these words. If he means really to divorce her, the woman is divorced by such words” (pp. 139-143).
“Ordinarily a man may re-marry his divorced wife by saying, ‘I appeal and return to my wife.’ There is no need ofa new marriage contract” (p. 147).
“To divorce a wife is the sole right`of a husband except when the husband gives the right to his wife” (p. 157). This is very important in Islamic law. A man may divorce his wife, but a woman may never divorce her husband.
“Ifa man is disputing with another man with regard to their accounts says: ‘You are demanding of me so much; I owe you nothing; if I owe you that sum, let _ My wife be divorced,’ and if his debt is verified by the court, his wife becomes divorced” (p. 172).
“if a man takes an oath saying that he will not join his wife, and persists in his oath for four months, his wife is divorced” (p. 190). go
(One does not want to translate passages of this kind
2
6L
Let mé quote a few examples. of the Holy Fetvas relating to marriage and divorce from the Dyerideyi Ilmiye, which was the official organ of the Shiehk-ul- Islam’s office at Constantinople. They are so clear in showing the Moslem mentality in respect to these problems.
“The Holy Fetvah, month of Dhil hijja, 1339 A.H.. (1921 A.D.): If Zaid (a man) writes a letter to his wedded wife, signed and sealed, and says: ‘I have divorced my wife Hind,’ and sends this letter to his wife, she becomes divorced.” ,
“Month of Shevval, 1339 a.u. (1921 A.D.): If Zaid (a man) marries Khadidje, the daughter of his aunt, and then wants to marry Raquiye also, the daughter of another aunt of his, he may marry; his marriage is lawful.”
“Month of Djemazil, 1339 A.H. (1921 A.D.). If Zaid says: ‘If 1 drink any more coffee or tobacco or narguile, my wife shall be divorced’; and then drinks coffee or tobacco or narguile, his tea is divorced by him.”
‘Month of Mouharrem 1339 A.H. (192t A.D.): If Zaid rebukes his wife, swearing, by her religion or faith, the wife becomes divorced.”
A few incidents may not be out of place to illustrate this mentality. A Moslem Kurd once brought his sick wife to the Christian hospital for treatment. He was a well-to-do man. The'doctor examined the wife and told him that she needed an operation, and that the charge would be four pounds for it. The Kurd looked
$
Here is another incident which was told to me by a Christian merchant. He had a Moslem neighbour next door to his shop. One day he heard that his Moslem neighbour had lost his wife. She had been ill and died. The Christian merchant thought of visiting him and expressing his sympathy and sorrow. He went to his house, and after saluting him; said: “I was very sorry to hear about the death of your wife. May God console you and your children!’ Immediately the Moslem stopped him and rebuked him by saying: “What! . I have changed my bed only.” He had already married another wife.
I remember once in a Turkish bath, where people talk lazily on all sorts of matters, some men talking about women. One of them said: “Women do not have chastity or honour.” -All the company agreed to it. That rings still in my. ears. That was the way our Moslem neighbours looked on their wives. The com- mon word used in Turkey for women is “Acrat,” which means literally the shameful parts of the body. A woman is a thing to be ashamed of, and to be kept in concealment. That is the old Moslem mentality toward women.
Let us discuss very briefly the ethical principles and their use in Islam. The old Moslem mind is not _ disturbed by inconsistencies. It is almost a normal thing for him to express allegiance at the same time to two things which are inconsistent. Even the Koran itself, the Holy Word of Allah, is inconsistent in many
THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY (Gy
angs, For example, with regard to the Qibla,
e toward which all Moslems ought to turn for
worship. Chapter ii, verse 109, reads: “To Allah belongeth the East and the West, therefore, whichever way ye turn to pray, there is the face of God.” That is really a beautiful verse, but there is another verse in the same chapter ordering definitely all Moslems to turn only toward Mecca and nowhere else. Chapter 1i, verse 139: “We have seen thee turning thy face towards Heaven, but we will have thee turn toward a Qibla which shall please thee.” “Turn then thy face toward the Holy Mosque of Mecca, and wherever you be, turn your face toward that part.” The inconsistency between these two verses is so evident that in one of the new translations of the Koran into Turkish they have altogether changed the first verse and translated it as ordering all Moslems to turn to Mecca. Or take for example the number of Mohammed’s wives, which is one of the most scandalizing things inə Islam. Chapter xxxiii, verse 52, definitely says: “O, Prophet! it is not permitted to thee to take other wives hereafter, nor to change thy present wife for other women, though their beauty chanm Hee except slaves whom thy right hand shall possess.”
Whereas in the same chapter, verse 49, gives na permission to the Prophet to marry as many as he likes. “O Prophet! we allow thee thy wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand
- possesseth, out of the booty which God had granted thee. And the daughters of thy paternal and maternal - aunts, and any believing woman who hath given her-
| MOSLEM MENTALITY _ G up to the Prophet, if the Prophet desireth to I ta privilege for thee above the rest of the faithful.” (The number of wives allowed to the faithful is four.) Even in the Prophet’s lifetime, when people saw the inconsistencies in his revelation, and began to ridicule him, he brought the revelation: ““Whatever verses we cancelled or caused thee to forget, we bring a better or its like. Knowest thou not that God hath power over all things??? Yes, God has power over all things, and that is the key to these inconsistencies in the Moslem __ mind. God is not questioned as to what He does, whether consistent or inconsistent. This mentality has not only confused the Moslem ~ legal system, but has poisoned the Moslem moral life. lt is a significant thing that there is not a moral code like the Ten Commandments in the Moslem law or the Holy Books. It is a very important thing that with all the legalism of the Hebrew life, there was an ethical code like the Ten Commandments which: condemned some things definitely as wrong: “Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness,” etc. There is no such thing in the whole Moslem Shariah. Some ‘acts are permitted (Halal); some acts are not permitted (Haram); but there is no distinction as right or wrong morally. Therefore Moslem ethics is very much like some rules in the Arabic grammar. You réad a rule, and you think you have learned it; but when you begin to apply it, you find so many exceptions that you get puzzled. In fact, sometimes the exceptions become the majority, and the rules the minority. Let
‘logian and thinker in the history of Islam. In his Ethics he speaks as follows, on telling lies:
“Know that a lie is no wrong in itself, but only because of the evil conclusions to which it leads the hearer, making him believe something that is not really the case. Ignorance sometimes is an advantage, and if a lie causes this kind of ignorance, it may be allowed. It is sometimes a duty to lie; a lie is sometimes better than truth; for instance, if you see a man seeking for another in order to kill him, what do you reply to the question as to where he is? Of course you will — reply thus. For such a he is lawful! If lying and truth both lead to a good result, you must tell the truth, for a lie is forbidden in this case. Ifa lie is the only way to reach a good result, it is allowable (Halal). A he is lawful when it is the only path to duty. For example, if a Moslem flees from an unjust one, and you are asked about him, you, are obliged to lie in order to save him. Jf the outcome of war, reconciliation between two separated friends, or the safety of an oppressed person, depends on a lie, then a lie is allowed. In all cases we must be careful not to lie when there is no necessity for it, lest it be wrong (Haram). If a wicked përson asks a man about his wealth, he has to deny having any; and so if a Sultan asks a man about a- crime he has committed, he has to deny it and say, ‘I have not stolen,’ when he did steal; ‘nor done any vice,’ when he has done. ‘The Prophet said, ‘He who has done a shameful deed must conceal it, for revealing one disgrace is another disgrace.’ A person must deny the
a MOSLEM MENTALITY Gig ing of others as well. Making peace between wi
duty, even by pretending to each of them that she is loved the most, and by making promises to please her, “We must lie when truth leads to unpleasant results, but tell the truth when it leads to good results.” Once I wanted to buy a book from a Moslem book- seller at Constantinople. He sold Korans and other religious books, I wanted to buy a certain commentary on the Koran. He gave me the book, and I asked him to tell me the right price. He told me, and I paid him what he wanted. He was very strict in his prayers and ablutions. His turban was as white as snow. The next day I understood that he had cheated me. I asked another Moslem who was his neighbour :*“‘How could _ this man tell lies, and yet offer prayers five times a day?” He said: “Those two things are quite separate. For his prayers he takes his reward ; for his lies he takes his punishment.” Thus prayer and cheating can go together. Another case which opened my mind to the laxity of the Moslem ethical principles happened in a Moslem school where I was a teacher. There. was an old man with a white turban and a long beard who occupied the chair of religious instruction. We were good friends. He taught the Koran and the Shariah to the pupils. He was very devout in his manners, and was an honest Moslem. One day he had had some trouble with the director of the school, and came and told me that if the director asked me about a certain matter, I should not tell the truth, but tell something different.
* Cf. Dr. Zwemer’s A Moslem Seeker of God, p. 204.
( & \2\THE OLD MOSLEM MENTALITY GL a Tie segged me to do so. I looked in his face and sai
that would be a lie.” He turned to me quite innocently and said; ““My boy, it is lawful to tell seven lies in life, let that be the first for you.” He never blushed in saying that. It is lawful to tell lies seven times, and seven was a number which meant unlimited allowance!
The Moslem moral life is really very loose. The greatest harm Islam has done to its followers has been its divorce of life from morality. In the Islamic mentality there is not the fundamental distinction
` of right or wrong, just or unjust. In the desert life is free from rules or order. The will of the ruler is the rule in everything. So it has been in the sphere of ethics in Islam, and that is the tragedy of the Moslem peoples.
One does not need to add enei in the way of comment to these things. They speak for. themselves. Would one born in a Christian home and trained in a Christian environment like to be born and be brought up in such an atmosphere? People who say that the ~ religion of a people is good for that people do not know what they say. Once at Constantinople a Moslem young man came to see me privately on a certain matter. He belonged to a rich family; his father was a governor in one of the towns in Asia Minor, and his mother a teacher and a writer. This young man of about twenty-three years of age opened his heart and told me all about his home life and school atmosphere. He was born in a typical Moslem family, and educated in Moslem schools. He knew it all by his experience.
MOSLEM MENTALITY
"rie turned to me and said: “Believe me, I have le
thing good from my family or school life; nothing good.” That was the experience and confession of a Moslem young man. Nothing really good from a Moslem environment. I believe he did not exaggerate, and he is one of many millions.
SL
CHAPTER II
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
* Great events have taken place in the Moslem lands of the Near East within the last decade. Unexpected changes have followed one another with amazing rapidity, to the great surprise of the whole world. Think of the events which have just occurred in Turkey, the leading political power of Islam, and at Constantinople, the seat of the Holy Caliphate. The abolition of the Capitulations and the Millet system; the abolition of the Sultanate (November 1, 1929); the Declaration of the Republic (October 29, 1923); the abolition of the Caliphate (March 3, 1924); the adoption of Western laws in the administration of the country ; the introduction of new agricultural methods; the immense importance given to the building of railways; the new methods in commerce, industry, and finance; changes in social life and cultural ques- tions; the new impetus to education; the new freedom given to women; etc.; all these are really amazing changes, and no observer can deny the great signifi- cance of these events in the life of the Moslem peoples of the Near East. |
But our chief concern in this book is not ta give a new description of these things, but rather to indicate the currents of thought underlying these movements. Enough has been written about these events in scores
about their meaning and their underlying principles. That is our purpose in this study. In order to under- stand these underlying currents, we shall take the ideas expressed in two books dealing with these changes, published by the Turks at Constantinople during the last two years. We know that there have been many publications in the Arabic land Persian speaking areas of the Near East also to show the new Moslem mentality. The publications by Sheikh Abder-Razik with regard to the origin and function of the Caliphate in Islam, and the liberal ideas expressed by Dr. Taha Hussein in his book on the Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry, really are very significant. But where Turkey was _. fifteen years ago, Egypt is to-day; so by studying the _ Turkish ideas we shall have gone to the source of the matter. All the students of Moslem thought must carefully follow the newdevelopments in Turkey, as they are influencing the whole Islamic world everywhere. The first of these Turkish books was written by Abel Adam at Constantinople in 1926. Among the literature published in Turkey since the Revolution in 1918, I believe there is no book equal to this in showing plainly the fundamental ideas moving the events in the country, and inspiring modern Turkish leaders. He has called his book The Book of Mustafa — Kemal, or, The Book of the Men of the Type of Mustafa Kemal, taking Mustafa Kemal as the ideal image of his ideas. The book really is a study of the mind of modern Turkey, in contrast with that of old
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
‘key. Here are some typical quotations from the
~The mentality of Europe is the mentality of this world; while we live in this world, we act by it. The mentality of Asia is the mentality of the next world ; in the next world we shall act by it” (p. 3).
“It is the West that represents the happiest life, the strongest state organization, and the truest human life. We must learn their art of living” (p. 5).
“The West has fought with the clergy in order to develop this mentality, and at last they have established this art of living” (p. 6).
“Our medressehs (schools of religion) had one logic, one mentality only, i.e., to deduce everything from the religious books; whereas the Western mentality sees life with the humanistic eye and organizes its life accordingly. We must know that the two cannot agree. -..+ The West believes that men belong to man (human) and have the aim of living perfectly as man in this world. The East believes that man belongs to God, and aims to make the next life sure. The two are incompatible” (pp. 7 f.).
~The point of clash among our people has been be- tween the modern mentality and the old Arab religious mentality. ‘This is the danger for our Republic” (p. 13).
“The Asiatic people have never been saved from poverty and’ misery and the habit of deducing judg- ments from the divine laws. One cannot sce anything else in the history of Egypt, India, Persia, Ancient Japan, China, Turan, and Arabia. These people, by
sheer ignorance, have ascribed to Sultans or other D {
chief cause of the misery of all the Islamic nations . . . (p. 14).
INE present struggle is against this Asiatic mentality. The situation is clear. In Europe there is no literate or illiterate person who acts by revelation; whereas in Asia there is nothing else but prophets and saints and divine rulers. You find the divine command inter- fering with the most private affairs of a person, and directing all phases of social, economic, commercial, scientific, and administrative activities (p. 16).
“The main lines of this mentality are the following:
1. Truth cannot be discovered by reason, but by
tradition.
2. Life must be administered, not nage human principles discovered by the human intellect, but by the divine laws which are unchangeable.
. This world is passing; the next is everlasting.
. To ascribe everything to fate and destiny.
. To reject the national life and to remain bound by religious traditions.
. To pay absolute homage to a spiritual head.
O aho
“This iron cage has not left any possibility of the salvation of the Asiatic peoples. This mentality has been really an attempt to kill life and humanity. It - has severed the relationship between men and life” (pp. 15f,). : < “Tt is a sophistry. to say that human reason cannot
understand truth. The communicator of the so-called
<n reason, and his traditions are a pile of nonsense which cannot stand the criticism of reason” (pp. zo f.),
“Modern positive science considers this mentality as a killing poison” (p. 22).
“The Moslem Exegettes have not given the liberty of conscience and thought to the people, nor has Moslem jurisprudence given the rights of life and activity. All the Asiatic nations have been governed by these religious sciences, and their laws have been deduced from that basis, and these laws being unchangeable always have opposed the progress of human evolution. Exegesis has kept the mind from growth, and jurisprudence has prohibited the development of the social conscience, therefore there has been no possibility for intellectual or social revolution in Asia”’ (p. 26).
‘This is the truth we find in the history of the Asiatic peoples. Asia has been dominated by this mentality, and it has no capability within itself to change this mentality. Salvation can only be secured by the vaccine of the European mentality. . . . The Asiatic mentality must be rejected totally, and the European mentality must be adopted totally; there is no other way for salvation” (p. 31).
*“The Medresseh (Moslem school of religion) has never recognized that with the change of time, judgments also ought to change. . . . It has kept on producing prescriptions of judgments from that black-covered Book; that black-covered Book which was in Mecca before Bagdad, earlier still, it belonged to other primi- tive peoples in the desert. Is it possible at all to act
MOSLEM MENTALITY
ith such a.law which was altogether unsuit r
»the‘development of social life and growth of the human mind? ... The fruit of such a power is deteriora- tion” (p. 49).
‘““Medresseh had established a divine science based on the peculiar interpretations of the Hadiths (Moslem traditions) and the Qur’anic verses, and anathematized all those who endeavoured to get out of this circle. They had prohibited science to all people” (p. 55).
“Christianity was as Asiatic as Islam, but it has never been able to change the social life of the peoples. Christianity went to Rome only in the form of an idea, and did not carry over with itself the social life of the Jewish environment. On the contrary, Christianity itself was lost in the social life of Rome which repre- sented the Europe of those times. If Christianity had marched on from Jerusalem with a powerful army like Islam, and had occupied Europe, the family life of Europe would have been abolished, and the laws of the Arabic desert would have overturned the habits of those countries. The modern Europe would not have existed at all. However, history in Europe took a different course, and so the family life of Europe was saved” (p. 81).
“Law is based in France on the idea of right; in Ger- many on power; and in England on interest” (p. 92)
‘We are living at the present time in an era of
nationalism; instead- of France we ought to have followed Germany or England... . Nationalism abolished Ottomanism, made subjective philosophy useless, individualistic economy dangerous, and divine
ETABA }
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY G | Dl,
Janingless. According to nationalism, reli Samorality is essentially immorality; Arabic social life is to be rejected; the policy of following Islam is to be
abandoned” (p. 107).
“To be Islamized, to be modernized, and to be
Turkified, was the policy of the compromisers in our past history. This compromise was impossible. The harm of the laws taken from Islam was already evident. The use of the pre-Islamic Turkish laws was very doubtful ; so the only course was that of moderni- zation, and this could only be achieved through a Revolution (p. 109). This ought to be our path in the future.” |
“Roman civilization swallowed Christianity up with all its institutions. It was not the Christian idea of law that became dominant in Europe, but the Roman idea of law. It was the Roman life that persisted. No institution of the Asiatic social life had entered Rome. The customs of Jesus were unknown; only the name of
God had been changed” (p. 126).
_- The Roman civilization saved Europe. All the peoples who became Christian kept their principles of - right, their family customs, and of other aspects of life as inherited from the Roman civilization,”
“Christianity acted just as other religions. It was thought of as traditional. Intellectual progress was prohibited; and education was confined to the Christian ‘Mcdresseh,’ monastery. But social life and institutions were leit untouched. In fact, Christianity had no: institutions to supersede the existing institutions. This is the reason why Europe did not became Asiatized.
-.\ GP Chiistianity had brought laws of polygamy, seclus
? omen, a logic of fate and commands anathematizing esthetics, all Europe would have been dervish like Persia, India, and Arabia. The fact of their being European could not have saved them.”
“So came also the French Revolution. The leaders of the French Revolution have all been inspired by the Greek philosophers. Their writings are full of the words of the Greek writers. In them one never finds any reference to any divine book, because neither in the
_ Gospels nor in the Book of Zoroaster was there such a truth” (p. 129).
“The Revolution abolished the supremacy of Re-
~ ligion. Religion had taken the form of a social insti- tution like poetry or music, and it was needed by the people. It did not make much difference whether it was true or false. It was not necessary to explain it rationally. I have studied in French Catholic Schools, and I am acquainted with the theoretical and practical teaching of Christianity; it is altogether a nonsense metaphysic” ( p. 130).
“This is the European mentality. There is nothing like it in Asia, But we also can acquire it. Wé are also human. We must accept it in toto as it is” (p. 133).
“How can we do this? We must use revolutionary methods. We are called to abolish the Asiatic men- tality and establish the European mentality. We are
~concerned with the same problems as the French Kevolution; so we ought also to use revolution as a method. No revolution can allow freedom to its enemies” (p. 135).
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
must Mustafa Kemalize the Turks’ (p. 1
Tó-day we are living in the era of nationalism; we have not yet reached the era of humanism. Euro- pean civilization acts on the principle of nationalism; we must also do likewise. No nation recognizes the | rights of other nations, or shows mercy or runs to help others. The terrible wars in Europe show this principle plainly. . . . Europe acts on the principle of national- ism. We see an English type which is willing to kindle the whole world in order to light his pipe. All European Powers are like that. We, the Turks, also shall be so. This is an exigency of the present-day humanity ; therefore it is useless to criticize it or speak against it. Movements contrary to this principle are simply ridiculous. The League of Nations is a pitiful example of this sarcasm. To-day there is no humanitarian mentality in Europe, and therefore we also cannot act on humanitarian logic. We have nationalism and nationalistic logic only. This is the struggle for existence, and it is the foundation of life everywhere. This is an axiom ; it is self-evident” (p. 155).
“The lever of modern civilization is national economy. .-. . [fcommunism had been realized in the time of Jesus, it would have satisfied fully the needs of those peoples, but it would have kept society in that primitive state always” (p. 167). l
“European civilization is this organization. It isnot important for us to know whether it is civilized or barbaric. Human life is such at the present time. The duty of Turkey is to enter this family and to establish equally the Turkish rights, ‘Turkish culture, Turkish
MOSLEM MENTALITY
y based on mining crafts. Life is logica Agic, but it is plain. “To be or not to be, that is the question.’ ”’
Let us take the second book written: by the well- known Turkish writer Djelal Nouri Bey, under the title The Turkish Revolution. Djelal Nouri Bey’s position seems somewhat different from that of Abel Adam. If Abel Adam is opposed to all religion for national interests, Djelal Nouri Bey, taking the example of Protestantism in Europe, seems to side with a reformed » Moslem religion on national lines. He does not want to _ remain a Mohammedan, that is, a follower of Moham- med, but thinks he can remain a reformed Moslem. Reformed Islam is his way of salvation for his people. We quote the following passages from his book:
“Ottomanism has tried to perpetuate Asiatism in the mind of Europe. This was impossible in this environment, There was an urgent need to be Euro- _ peanized, but the crookedness in the foundation of the State has always been an obstacle to Westernization. It had no power of assimilation” (pp. 10-18).
“The Turkish race has great abilities, especially the ability to rule and to assimilate other peoples, The calamity of the Turkish people was Ottomanism and Imperialism. The Ottoman Sultans did not care for the Turkish nation. They separated the Christian element on one side from the Moslems, and even did not want to Turkify and unify all the Moslem elements in the empire” (pp. 24-25).
“The characteristic of the Ottoman State from the
eA THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
S of ohammed the Conqueror has been i ignora E > Mghárnmed the Conqueror did not seize the oppor-
tunity at the conquest of Constantinople. He kept and protected the Christian clergy, but let the learned group of Byzantium run away from Constantinople. He even instituted an order of Islamic clergy imitating _ the orthodox clergy. So the Turkish nation looked to the East instead of the West. We have taken our religion, our culture, and even part of our language from the East. After the conquest of Constantinople things began to change altogether in Europe, and life was saved from despotism; whereas our rulers did not know anything about these new awakenings in Europe” (pp. 29 f.).
“The Turks did not avail themselves of the economic importance of Constantinople for commercial purposes. As soon as they conquered Constantinople, the Byzantines, the Genoese, and the Turkish mariners left the city and ran away. . . . The causes of the downfall of the Ottoman State were:
1. The lack of racial homogeneity in the empire; and 2. The lack of a national ideal to pursue. On the other hand they gave way to foreign capitula- tions, to the Europeans, and gave the intérnal capitulations to the Greeks and Armenians
(pp. 34-52).”
Concerning the Enn between European civilization and Christianity, Djelal Nouri Bey has some important things to say. “It is a mistake to call the modern European and American civilization a
: MOSLEM MENTALITY S istian civilization; that is, a civilization bro
l ont by Christianity. The Christian religion adie itself to the movements in Europe, and was saved out of the old static condition, so much so that to-day there is little resemblance between the religion taught ‘by Jesus and modern Christianity. It may even be asserted that the present Christianity differs fundament- ally from the original Christianity. The Europeans have built an altogether new religion during the course of the past nineteen centuries, although they have begun with the story of Jesus. Christianity in Europe, “in spite of the opposition of the clergy, has assimilated ` the ideas and thoughts of every age. When Europe was ` struggling with ignorance during the Middle Ages, Christianity also was in a pitiful condition. But about four centuries later a radical purification took place in the Christian religion. A number of nations separated themselves from the Catholic Church and formed a new organization. Even the Roman Catholic Church | began to change within itself. Thus we see that Christ- ianity could not oblige its followers to be content with the old forms. Ultimately it was the new ideas that gave to Christianity a new colour. To-day, if Christ were to come to the world, he would remain a stranger among the Christians. (The present Christianity is so essentially higher than that of Jesus!)
“In Islam we never see such an adjustment and _ development. Islam as a religion has the most sublime principles, yet has remained in a static condition under the control of the religious teachers. To-day any Christian who took as sufficient the laws of the time of
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
a . A ws
| Stianity has breathed only a spirit from the story of Jesus. The present rules regulating the Christian life are the results of the activities of the following
A y% CD y k c . a e L, => sesus:would be in an awkward situation in the world.
nineteen centuries. Especially in later years Christianity `
has altogether separated itself from the political life, But politics has had a free hand to develop in Europe, whereas our theologians and teachers have never followed the Christian course. They believed that laws could never be subjected to changes and reforms, and
thus they closed practically all doors against develop- ©
ment and future progress. We believe this was against
the spirit of the Holy Law of Islam, the Shariah. Thus |
Islam has remained in a static condition until the present time. Abou Hanife and all the other four great Imams have always established new laws accord- ing to the new exigencies of life, even such laws as may. seem contrary to the Koranic commandments. If we had followed the same policy in religion, Islam might have been brought to a condition fitted to’the demands of the present age. But the Moslem clergy did not do so. They merely followed the old enactments blindly. _ They did not realize that these laws of Islam had been written for those ages only, and with the change of times, laws and even some religious beliefs ought to change, otherwise there could be no progress, and a nation living under such static conditions would become a slave to others. To remain chained to the order of an old fetvah (religious judgment) checks all movement and progress. It means to be bound with the social, economic, and civic political ideas of those
ES
MOSLEM MENTALITY
"cient days, and everything that is motionl
ind to decline. This is a general principle of life.
‘However, this was not the true spirit of Islam. Islam has a great scope for new activities through the principle of what is called the Consensus of the people, Ijmah. Our doctors of law and religion have ignored this altogether. In Europe, the Christian Church was overcome ultimately by the new progress, and conse- quently the Western peoples profited much by the new inventions and new discoveries of science. The Asiatic
peoples, on the other hand, did not shake off the old
‘traditions. To-day the issue before us is this: Life or
Tradition? Which one shall we follow? Life is the ~ primary thing; tradition is only a decoration. Some traditions may be sacred, but their sacredness depends upon their usefulness. When traditions seem harmful to life, it is absurd to keep them.
‘Can we live, and make progress, and be strong, yet keep the old outlook and ‘the old traditions? Can we take only European arts, and omit the European method - of reasoning? Those two cannot be separated from each other. Europe has a scientific method of study based on free reason. A Sheikh to-day, in the year 1926, regulates and judges everything according to an old text in an old book. He is bound to that old text or statement, and if he separates himself from it, he becomes an infidel, a Kiafir. In Moslem countries, politics, civilization, living, clothing, and even food, are regulated by the laws of religion. For example, our sheikh, in deciding whether a certain water is clean or not and can be used for ablutions, opens his black-
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY (Cr O
A\devtred book, and if the water is of the type ofa mot
pond (Havzi Rakid), without caring for the rotten things which it may contain, such as the green mosses and dead frogs and other dirt, decides that this water is clean, and not only clean but cleanses. A European uses his senses and his chemistry: we use our old books. That is just the case in politics and social law also. We are dead and drowned in the judgment of the Imams of hundreds of years ago. In Moslem lands _ religious tradition and customs have been the chief obstacles to progress. By and by, not only the political and social life, but the spiritual and the moral life aiso began to become stagnant. Character, which is the aim of all religion, also deteriorated. To-day an illuminated Moslem does not respect his Moslem social environment, whereas an illuminated Christian re- mains faithful to his Church. So religious doctors have neglected morals and spirituality.
“Take for example the problem of polygamy as a social system. Let us not forget that Judaism and Christianity as religious customs do not forbid poly- gamy. Yet the Christian Church has adapted itself to the social demands of Europe and. has forbidden polygamy. Thus Europe, instead of conforming to the old laws of the Christian religion, has obliged the
_ Christian Church to conform to its new ideas. The Christian clergy recognize all the ancient prophets of the Hebrews, with all their wives and concubines, as true prophets. The Holy Bible contains hundreds of verses in favour of polygamy, but the Christians have disregarded all these. On the other hand, the Moslems
MOSLEM MENTALITY
‘never objected or protested against the fana Oar jurists (faqih). We never see the Moslems adapting themselves to the needs of the time in all the
history of Islam. Old traditions have benumbed the
Moslems and made them senseless. The first Moslem nation awakening out of this deep sleep is the Turkish nation” (pp. 58f.).
ee al
“We must adopt the Western method of thinking. |
In the West no one cares for an abstract statement of the past, whoever may have uttered it. All science is based on experiment. Whereas in the East science is based on tradition. Reason is subordinated and tra- dition is superior. In the West, thinking is free; in the East, it is not free. The Eastern man begins to feel like
a fish out of water when he begins to think freely; he
feels embarrassed” (p. 68).
“The Turks have now understood that those peoples who adhere to a religious system do not prosper, therefore the Turks, in-place of adhering to the old Islamic traditions, have adhered to the new Western cult, which is nationality. To be faithful to the past in order to be united in fate with a body of 300 millions who never make progress is to rebel against the present and the future. . . . It means to lose national existence” (p. 116).
“There were previous preparations for our present awakening and rapid revolution. Yet there was a _ lack of principle in the Turkish State. On one hand they were borrowing Western laws, but on the other hand they were producing an Islamic code of laws, Medjelleh, to be the basis. This was like taking Euro-
HE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
methods of treatment in medicine, yet keepi 1¢-old pathology and physiology” (pp. 116-129). “Christianity is not composed only of Gospels; it is not based on them. In the early centuries of Christ- janity the Church Councils adopted some new creeds, and the Church has followed these creeds. But even those creeds have not remained fixed. Much has been deduced and added since. So Christianity has gone very far from its source. If Christ were to come to the world to-day, he would remain a stranger in Christen- dom! The Christian Church has changed, whereas Islam has remained static since the days of the four great Imams. It has not changed nor made progress. It has remained where it was... . But this idea, namely, that laws do not change, is not Islamic. Our Jurists have spoiled the elasticity of religion. They
_ Ought to have given more scope to Ijmah, i.e. to the
TE a
consensus of Islamic opinion in every age. In my Opinion, even the collection of the Koran in the form
Of a book was not good and profitable. We do not
Know whether the Prophet ordered such a collection tO be made at all. Caliph Osman’s efforts for this Collection are not worthy of much praise, anyhow. In the Koran we have some commandments and admonitions. They are independent commands as the situation required. The idea was not to put them in a consecutive form as a book. The prophet has never Ordered such a thing; he did not intend it. The col- lectors of the Koran ignored this fact. Each com- Mandment in the Koran is related to the special Situation of that time. With regard to the Hadiths,
{
and judgments of the Jurists after Mohammed, we can give no importance to them at all. Their decisions © and judgments may have a relative and temporary value only. . . . Our doctors could now show Islam to the people in an attractive form. On the other hand, Christianity containing innumerable contradictions and illogical things, has organized its worship in a form that would appeal to the people. Christianity with a¥rotten basis has shown itself more attractive to people than‘Islam with a sound basis. The Reforma- tion under Martin Luther is a great epoch in the history of the Christian Church. Perhaps no one has served Christianity more than Luther. If this reform had not occurred, Christianity would have collapsed | long ago, and would have gone into the records of | past history like many other religions. In Islam we never see such an earnest fundamental effort for reform. | The Moslems have not had a progressive civilization ; the Turks have discovered-this. What is religion for really? Is it not for the happiness of man? But sup- pose religion becomes an obstacle to the happiness of people! Is not that because people have not understood religion and its supreme end rightly? The fault was not with religion, but with the rulers who have made it an instrument of their despotism through their servants, the clergy; therefore we are leaving those and following the Western civilization” (p. 130). “According to our law a husband at any moment may divorce his wife who has been faithful and honest
HE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
sant has borne children by giving her the dowry an thrée-months’ sustenance. In Western language this is not divorce but repudiation. No family life could be established on such a rotten basis. We need to. investigate the basic elements of Western civilization. Our people. need to be illuminated with regard to the Western life. We always say Western civilization, but do not know its essence and its history” (pp. 202 f.).
Our author speaks in the next chapter about the economic life and criticizes the old Ottoman State by saying:
~The Ottoman State was not an economic State. The Turkish people have not had economic traditions to follow.” Then he adds: “Angora may be a Washing- ton and Constantinople a New York” (p. 219).
Dealing with literature and æsthetics, he says:
“The progress started by Greece and Rome was checked by Christianity. .. . The glory of Rome began to decline. . . , It took three centuries for this decline, and ultimately an ordinary man was accepted as the Son of Gôd and began -to be worshipped. . . . In the fifth century ignorance was dominant everywhere under the clergy. ... Christianity lowered men to the stage of animals. Thinking was unlawful and expression of opinion was forbidden. Discussion was regarded as a great sin. Men were regarded as unclean creatures, God had come down to the world in the Person of Jesus, and shed his blood in order to wipe away the sin of Adam and Eve. A woman having been the cause of this sin, all women were put under a ban.
t was conceived a sin to take care of the body, because E
| MOSLEM MENTALITY GSI, Xe curse attached to it. Temporal affairs wer
ked, because religion did not care for other things ` except the spiritual. The body was despised as an unclean thing. People tried only to secure the happiness 1 of the soul. So the body suffered with filth and poverty,
which were considered as characteristics of a good person. It was regarded as a sin to wash the body because of the fear of washing away the baptismal water. In Spain the Church forbade the use of water for washing. In 467 A.D. Cardinal Spinoza destroyed
_ the public baths of the Arabs in Spain, and in Abyssinia even now the people do not wash themselves in order not to be like the Moslems, and they consider this a
~ requirement of Christianity. But fortunately humanity was not vanquished for.ever by the barricades of the Apostle Paul. In our age humanity has been freed
` from the despotism of Christianity which Nietzsche called the chief cause of decline and degradation., Humanity is now turning back to the ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Minds are becoming awakened from the slumber of the Middle Ages, and þegin to aspire to the freedom they had before Christianity” (pp. 346-365). |
Djelal Nouri Bey speaks at length about the Pro- testant Reformation, and says: l “The Reformation was a great step toward progress
in civilization. It purified religion, and therefore it was very important. The Renaissance was for the elevation of the mind; the Reformation was for the elevation of the soul. To-day the old intellectual and political tyranny of the Roman Church is removed.
—— NN a ee ee
HE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY X
even surpassed Athens and Rome in scientific
progress. Luther entered the strife, and -with one - Stroke destroyed various Papal institutions and regus | lations. He sought ways by which to return to the
original principles of Christianity, and tried to save the people by referring to the early beliefs of the Hebrews. In this respect the Reformation resembles the Renaissance. As the Renaissance advocated the
return to Rome and Greece, so the Reformation |
aimed at the return to Jerusalem. Luther, this German
renovator, took the Moslem dictum, ‘There is no
priesthood in Islam,’ and applying it to Christianity, said: ‘There is no priesthood in Christianity.’ Thus the priests gave their places to the preachers. Luther, as in Judaism and Islam, did not recognize the need of any intermediaries between God and His creatures, therefore everybody became his own priest, and*had the right to read and understand the Old and New Testaments in the Bible.
The Protestant Revolution is both religious and
‘political. Luther with one stroke led: an important
section of mankind into the paths of liberty, and so, in part deliberately and in part unconsciously, became the model of modern Western society” (pp. 366-395).
“We must not, however, forget that even Luther and Calvin, those two pillars of Protestantism, were not advocates of absolute freedom of thought. Although the new religion accepted the principle of free investi- gation and discussion, yet it put the condition that everything must be in accordance with the Bible. It
“al
MOSLEM MENTALITY
cause of this that the discoveries of Cope 9 id’ not please them. Christianity held that the earth
is the centre of the universé, and that the Son of God.
came down to save this world, therefore any discovery
proving the existence of other worlds than this was
regarded as contradictory to the divine revelation in
the Bible.
“After long strife and wars, the Pope was forced to | cede an important part of Europe to this movement. Modernism in religious matters had seemed dangerous to civilization, but after these transitory reactions, free- dom of conscience was established firmly in Europe. Although in a limited area, yet free criticism helped
~. minds to grow in thinking and to be opened up. Henceforth in Protestant countries the old despotic Catholic priests were replaced by pastors who preached moral sermons and admonitions.
“The Moslems remained alien to these great revolu- tions of the age. It may: be objected that we were not Christians, so we could not participate in them. But we ought to have participated in their results in the various fields of thought. That is what we want to say with regard to ig
“In that age every European State was reforming its religious affairs. The religion of the Middle Ages was being discarded and a new one was taking its place. Liberty in religion and thought was being established everywhere. This was the state of things in the West, whereas in the East the learned doctors remained
sticking jealously to their old scholasticism. It is fair to admit that in the, East at any time the clergy did
i i i i Ee
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY `
\@iiat-go’ to such extremes as the priests in the Ro Church, but in the East also the clergy had forbidden men to think outside the circle of old traditions. This mentality of the East prevented any modifications or changes in the laws of the country. For this reason for a long time the Osmanlis were not able to develop anything in the field of new laws and codes, The shackles of the old traditions killed liberty in ail aspects of life. People kept clinging with a great fidelity to the preservation of the old traditions. Conservatism
- made us inanimate, as it had killed China. It took away every possibility of progress.
“Our men were ignorant altogether of the Revolu- tion of the Reformation in Europe, whereas with us reforms could have been made more easily. They were already recommended by our religion. Islam in itself is a reformation. Our Prophet had achieved it long ago. Mohammed had come with the intention of confirming the religion of Abraham and purifying the teachings of Jesus, and so to give a final religion to the people. Final religion means a religion of liberty and progress. In order that a religion may be final, it ought to keep the door always open for new revelations. In the first epoch of the Islamic history, both in Bagdad and Spain, there was a great toler- ance of free discussion, but afterwards our scholastic- ism prevented thinking with reason. Since then we have slept, and it is only in these last years that we have begun to awaken. In conclusion, we want to say that the East had lost three centuries by not ` having been awakened by the Reformation. All the
Pp. 370-380).
I want to quote also briefly from a more recent book by Refiq Sidqi Bey, under the title The Turkish Revolution in the Face of Revolutions, 1927, Constantinople. He deals with the-past revolutions in the world in the spheres of law, social life, religion, and liberty of conscience, politics, and literature, and tries to show the meaning and importance of the present Turkish Revolution. He is following the same lines of thought
which other writers have pursued at the present time. His description of the abolition of the Caliphate is very "interesting. He says: ‘“The next step after the procla- =~ mation of the Republic was to separate the affairs of 9 religion and life from one another. The second great event in the Turkish Revolution was the abolition of the Caliphate. Fundamentally, the spirit of Islam also necessitated this separation of the affairs of religion and life. In the petition presented to the Grand Assembly it was stated that “The existence of a seat
_of Caliphate in Turkey made Turkey double-headed in all affairs relating to our internal and external relationships. Turkey could not stand this duality any more. To keep the old Ottoman dynasty in the garb of a Caliphate would form a perpetual danger to the Turkish national life. In early Islam Caliphate had been instituted to represent the Government, therefore there was no need of such an institution by our national Government.’ At the Grand Assembly there were many expressions of opinion on this subject. — Seyyid Bey said: ‘Justice is the attribute of God, and |
ty \3\ O MOSLEM MENTALITY G l “See Les of the East are still continuing in that ! L ' z l
f
‘ {
Batai a ie ie
EEE T
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY
s\a@eyust Asovernment like Turkey having this attrib “beéomes the Caliph of Allah. The Caliphate is already existent in the essence of the Government and of the Republic, and to recognize an individual as Caliph is heresy.’ Sadwet Effendi said: ‘God said to David, “We have made thee a Caliph on earth. . . . Judge justly among men.” This shows that the essence of Caliphate is to execute justice; it is government, and nothing else.’ The Minister of Justice made a long speech, and said: ‘There is not a single definite state-
ment in the whole Hadith (Moslem tradition) with
regard to the Caliphate.’ This shows that the Cali- phate is not an important problem in the religion of Islam. It is merely a political problem, and changes according to the condition of the time. Moreover, we have the Hadith of the Prophet that ‘The Caliphate must continue only thirty years after me; ifit continues longer, it shall be a biting despotism.’ Our Caliphs have been like that. God commands us consultation as the method of government. We are trying to establish that system among ourselves to-day. We do not need to keep a Caliph over our heads like a phantom. Islam does not accept any ecclesiastical order as in Christianity. In Islam there is neither religious Organization nor administrative organization. Islam - accepts only. one thing as sacred, and that is Truth. God is called Truth in Islam. Islam is not against progress. The real obstacle to the progres’ of the Turks was not Islam, but this constitution of the Caliphate which was an enemy of science and civiliza- _ tion. . . . Islam in our own times has been filled with
falsé ideas. How well the Prophet has prayed: ‘O God, show us the truth of things as they are’ ” (pp. 195 ff.). Refiq Sidqi Bey, speaking about the religious revolution, quotes from a recent Turkish translation of Fichte’s addresses the following words: ‘Religion requires of men only justice and morality. Many people have misused religion for their own interests and misrepresented it. They (have thought only of Paradise, and neglected the life on this earth. Ideas
of state, country, and nation had no value for them.
_ Did God send men into the world to prepare themselves
i? 4 for Paradise only? Never! Human beings have an active duty in this world. . . . Religion has been a í consolation to the oppressed and the slaves. . . . Do
not forget that the tyrant likes to preach to men religious trust, and paints to them the comfort in the higher Paradise. Beware of such conceptions of religion ! Do not make this world a Hell for yourselves by the desire for Paradise. Seek Paradise on Earth.’ Then Refiq Bey adds: “This is the spirit and ideal of our _ religious Revolution also. We shall not allow religion to be used as a means to forward the affairs of this world” (pp. 21 f.).
In referring to the meaning and aims of the Turkish Revolution, Refiq Bey speaks as follows in one of the concluding chapters of his book: “Our aim is tọ reach the other civilized nations, in the spheres of political, civil, and economic life, and to hold an honourable place: by them. We have lost much time in the past. Time i is money, and we shall not waste it any more.
ee MOSLEM MENTALITY Ps traditions. True Islam is the greatest enemy i
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY . G DL
\ See’ goal of our Revolution is to make the Tur “nation reach the plane of civilization of other nations. To be elevated in civilization is the mother purpose of our Revolution” (pp. 233 f.). | : These quotations are enough to show the character- istic ideas which govern the modern Moslem mentality. These modernized Moslems, the Turks, have begun to break completely with Orthodox Islam, as we under- stand it. Sofar there have been efforts by Moslem peoples for reformation, but they have been mostly of the type of making a compromise between Western civilization and Islam. During the last hundred years or more, partly by the force of the political events, and partly by the impact of Western civilization, the Turks have made strong efforts to reform their life. The history of Turkey during the last century is very interesting from this viewpoint. The Turks saw that they could not live without adopting Western civilization and its methods. First of all they began to change the old forms of military and civil administration. The Turks found out that their armies were useless before the well- trained armies of Europe, so they began to reform their military system. Then they introduced changes into the civil administration of the country. In addition to the old: religious courts based on the sacred canon law of Islam, new courts were established based on the European laws, and the two stood side by side declaring | judgments, Then the whole system of the government | Was changed. In place of the old despotic Sultanate, | constitutional government was proclaimed, and liberty } {
and equality were promised to all the races and religions
MOSLEM MENTALITY GL { Athin the empire. The educational system also i. ‘change. In the old Moslem medressehs students = wasted years in the study of Arabic grammar and old traditions ; therefore a new school system was organized, culminating in a modern university. The twa schools stood side by side—one based on the Arabic language and traditions; the other on modern languages and science. Important changes in literature also appeared in Turkey. Instead of the old verse forms of the Persian and Arabic languages, a new poetry in pure Turkish ~ words and measures began to be used. In all aspects — of life a tide had begun to rise; Turkish life had begun to change. But all this was an effort to make a com- T promise between Islam and Western progress ; between Eastern mentality and modern thought; between Mohammedan principles and European ideas, Turkey has striven very hard during the last century to ‘keep the two reconciled, so that they might go fork ward hand in hand. That has been the motive of the ~ efforts for reformation during the last hundred years in Turkey. Now there is an altogether new mentality arising out of new ideas. The Turks feel convinced $ that a compromise between the two is impossible. “The new wine cannot be put into the old skins.” This is the meaning of the amazing changes in Turkey during the last five years. In 1908, after the Proclama- tion of the Constitutional Government (the second _in the Turkish history), there was a free expression of thought in Moslem circles, but it was limited and based” f on the old ideas. The present mentality has broken all connections with the rigidity of the old Moslem
HE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY Ç ! DL
ghly, and they have begun to use sharp knives to cut off what is old, because they have found out by
experience that Westernization clashes with the old Islamic principles. The governing principle of their policy of reformation during the last hundred years was that Islamic principles and modern civilization are compatible, and even Islam could be a useful factor in fostering true progress. That principle of compromise has been found bankrupt by the Turkish Moslems, and they have begun to see the whole prob- lem in a new light. They are convinced that Orthodox
Islam not only has been useless, but has been an obstacle to progress in the past; therefore they have begun to dissect their social organization and to cleanse it from the microbes of the old Islamic mentality. There have been many clear utterances in the Turkish Press and many public speeches showing this conviction .
| of the Turks, but the statements in the address of the
_ Minister of Justice in Angora on the presentation of | the new civil code to the Prime Minister, February 1926, were perhaps the most striking. He said:
“Laws based on religion fetter their societies to primitive stages of life, and become the chief obstacles to progress. There is no doubt whatsoever that our laws, which have been inspired by the unchangeable judgments of religion, have been the strongest factor in binding the Turkish nation to the medieval view- point. “On the day that this new document of the new
| civil code shall be promulgated, the Turkish nation will be saved from the false beliefs and traditions which
`p ——$=s— =~
we steal have entered into the contemporary aA
of life and progress.”
The Turks reject Orthodox Islam on the basis that it is Arab, and not Turk; medieval, and not modern; nomadic, and not civilized. They say that they cannot be shackled by the ties of an Arab bedouin system in their efforts to rise up to the rank of the civilized
nations. They want to be Westernized completely, so
that they will no longer have the Arabic language,
Arabic alphabet, Arabic customs, Arabic religion, Arabic mentality. That is the attitude of the present i
Turkish leaders to Islam, and this is really unique in
the whole history of Islam. We shall continue a closer
study of this new mentality in the next chapter.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW MOSLEM MENTALITY— A CRITICISM
Tne modern Islamic world is a puzzle to many. There have been so many contradictory descriptions of the new changes in Moslem lands that Western readers
have been quite perplexed as to the reality of the facts, and especially their meaning. A great amount of literature—books, pamphlets, and articles in maga-
zines—has flooded the Press with descriptions of the
various changes in Moslem lands. The writers have
not been unanimous in their judgments on these matters. They have differed a great deal in their views. Some writers have given the impression that the Moslem world has altogether changed, old fashions of living have completely disappeared, all superstitions and fanaticism have been banished, and that these countries have become civilized and Westernized completely. On the other hand, one comes across writers who go to the opposite pole, and minimize or ignore the new changes and consider them all as superficial.
In order to form a correct judgment on this problem, We ought to go deeper in our investigation and find out the underlying principles and ideas in these changes.
There is no doubt that there are great developments
in Moslem lands, that amazing things have happened
r,
BV) MOSLEM MENTALITY Q; çi g the last few years, and are happening KSAM.
; | body can deny the truth of these events; but the pertinent question is as to their meaning and motive rather than the events themselves. The important question is, What are the underlying causes? What are _ the motives at the back of the mind of the men who | promote these changes? If we can answer these questions, we shall have obtained a right view with regard to the real meaning of what has taken place. The hands may be the hands of Esau, but what about the voice? The Moslems are entering the fold, but by which door? Are they entering by the right door, or climbing up some other way? That is the question, and it ought to be investigated thoroughly. I am not „aware whether this side of the problem has been wellt examined by Western writers. We have all been, dis- 1 cussing the great events which are conspicuous on them surface, but we ought to turn our microscope on them | ‘and see the inner activities which bring them about- We do not intend to undervalue the changes or belittle their significance, but we propose to go deeper and | investigate their sources and the motives stimulating | them. We want to know more of the spirit directing all . these new movements in the Islamic lands. | ~ Surely the Moslem peoples have cast off their old anchors, broken their ties with the old land, and set sail to find the new. But what is their destination, their compass? We want to know that. To some persons such questions may seem irrelevant | and quite out of place—in fact, unimportant altogether- They say: What is civilization after all? Is it not 4
:
W@OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM GL a
ode of living, a certain mode of eating
g, a certain method of carrying on business, buying and selling? Is not Western civilization science applied to industry, and economics applied to finance?
Is not modern civilization Biology, Physiology, Chem- istry, Mathematics, and other sciences which have given birth to all the modern inventions? If a nation has begun to appreciate these things and to adapt them to their life, are they not civilized? What do we require more? Why more questions at all? )
Most of the books written on Turkey and Islam by
Western writers in recent years seem to be based on such an idea of civilization. Their Table of Contents contains such topics as: Population, Agriculture, Railways, Commerce, Industry, Education, Finance, Social Questions such as the status of women, political
_ changes such as the Republican system, new laws, etc.
They survey the Islamic countries from all these viewpoints, and they find them largely satisfactory in such matters. One does not find any discussion of the moral and ethical side of the question. In fact, one does not find a single word on religious and spiritual issues in these books which contain hundreds of pages about all aspects of changes in Moslem lands. The writers have either the viewpoint of a politician or that of an historian, and consequently ignore or omit the ethical and spiritual issues.
Of course, the whole thing depends upon one’s Philosophy of civilization. We do not propose in this book to go into the question whether the basis of civilization is poe and spiritual or not. That is too
. MOSLEM -MENTALITY i igja subject for us to discuss here, and does not F ; y our subject directly. What concerns our problem 3
is this, that anyone who has lived long enough in © non-Christian countries, and has come into close © contact with the inner life of the non-Christian peoples, cannot fail to feel that there is an immense difference between the two, and that the difference rises out of their moral and spiritual outlook. That is the fact which we want to stress in this book. Western civili- zation contains much that is directly or indirectly due to the influence of the Christian religion, and which is not found in non-Christian countries. In fact, the very best things of Western civilization belong to this category. There is not any doubt about this in the mind of a person who really knows the East. It almost ~ ~" gives one pain to see that the Western peoples, while enjoying the very best things of Christian civiliza- tion, realize so little their indebtedness to Christianity. Take such a thing as telling the truth and expecting others to tell the truth, a thing which is a commonplace * in the best civilized lands. You go to the market and buy a necktie, and feel sure that the man told you the truth, and you made a fair bargain. That is a thing which is expected of everybody in all dealings in the West. Yet how little is it found in Moslem lands! In the West telling the truth is a thing which we take as our right as freely as we take fresh air or sunshine; but we do not realize its value—neither its origin nor source. So it is with the other aspects of “the best elements of Christian civilization, such as © kindness, honesty, sincerity, and the fine qualities of
OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM SI, i
hristian character. In the Western Christ ties these things are expécted of every decent person. You never think that the person you meet on the road will rob you, or kill you, or deal with you indecently. You never imagine that your children may go out into the field, and somebody may take them away, or injure them, or even kill them. You live in your house, and you never think that you may be raided by some people, and be plundered, do you? Yet I remember when I was a little boy how careful my mother was not to let me go alone to the field a few minutes from our house, for fear that some Turkish _ or Kurdish boys might take me away and hide me or kill me! How carefully we built high walls around our little houses, and locked our doors with heavy locks for fear of robbers and invaders, although we lived in a large town with Government and police and all the rest of it! Even in my grown-up years, how anxious I felt in coming home sometimes late in the evening in the streets of the town, lest someone should attack me or rob me! This sense of fear had so much entered my mind that, years aiterwards, in walking at nights through the quiet streets of Bournville, it still haunted me and even disturbed me in my dreams. But I am not to blame for it, because I know that one of my uncles, an honest shoemaker, a good father of five children, one morning kissed his children and went to his shop to earn the daily living of his family, but: never returned. He was killed by an axe with three hundred Others in the public place of the town, and left his children in deep sorrow and great misery all] F
MOSLEM MENTALITY
‘lives. Again I remember how another i ined at Yale and Basel Universities, a man of pure heart as a dove, perfectly innocent, and loved by all - the town, on his journey with twenty-three other pastors and teachers, one day was besieged in a country church, and without any notice or word they were all burned to ashes before the eyes of the Govern- ment officials. Such are the conditions in Moslem lands. Life has no value. Yet the people in the West take such things as the value;and sanctity of human life, which are the foundations of Western civilization, as commonplace; and how little they realize that for these things they are indebted to the moral and spiritual sense of public opinion produced by the Christian religion -through many generations. The West has much that is distinctly Christian, yet is not recognized as Christian, In the life of every person`living in the best Western countries there is much more of Christ- ianity than they realize at all. They have built up their life on the inheritance of many centuries of Christian ancestry, and are enjoying it; yet they don’t know it. This is as clear as sunshine to any person who knows ‘the inner conditions of the land where the name of Jesus Christ has never been heard. There is a sanctity in the very name of Jesus Christ which. purifies life and sanctifies it. This fact will be clearer as we go along ` in our investigation of the Moslem life from the moral viewpoint. Let us return to our subject. Our question was:
What are the ideals of the Moslem leaders at the present time? Is there any moral or spiritual motive
OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM G, Tu d l
ẹ back of their mind? “Where have they d ël water?” using a Turkish idiom; that is, what is _ the spring of their activities? What is the aim toward which they are striving? Let us take some of the promi- nent movements and test them with regard to their moral and spiritual content. Let us test them with a test different from that of mere economics and politics. The true test of all life is moral and spiritual, and that should be our test for the Moslems also. .
The most outstanding movement in Moslem lands to-day surely is the awakening of the national spirit, in other words, nationalism. The Moslem feels that whereas other nations have been awakened long ago to the sense of their national existence and honour, the Moslems themselves have slept in a deep slumber of religious conservatism, and this has been a great loss to them. Therefore they have decided to be awakened to the sense of their national existence and power, and they have begun to take steps to intensify this sentiment of nationalism among all the classes of their peoples, and to make it a passion. In the past, they say, everything has been sacrificed to the feeling of religiosity ; now everything must be sacrificed to the spirit of nationalism. In the past everything has been dominated by the enactments of religion; now every- thing must be dominated by the demands of national- ism, Nationalism above all and before everything | else; that seems to be the slogan in the minds of modern Moslem leaders. If the key to the. Moslem mentality in the past was the sacred law, the Islamic Shariah, the key to their present mentality is the cult
~ of the same kind is being aevclonen among the Moslems. Egypt is wide awake to this spirit of nationalism, but they are still in the state of compromising between Islam and nationalism. They want to carry the two together, but the Turks have been the most radical. They have adopted the principles of nationalism thoroughly, and are trying to apply them to all aspects of life. They are speaking of/national life, national language, national literature, national conscience, and national culture. Until a few years ago the word “Turk” was regarded as a term of contempt even by " the Turks themselves. They were all Osmanlis, and to call a Turk “Turk” meant to despise him. Now this has changed completely—the country is Turkish, the people are Turks, the Government is Turkish, the Grand Assembly is Turkish, the language is Turkish, the litera- ture is Turkish, and educatien and culture must be Turkish. This is not a change of word merely, but it indicates a new awakening of the national feeling. They want to Turkify everything, that is, to nationalize every- thing in the Turkish fashion.
In one of the important books published. by the sanction of the Minister of Education of Angora, dealing with the history of Turkish literature, printed at Constantinople 1925, one chapter is devoted to the development of the national spirit in Turkey. . On pages 596 f. the author speaks as follows with regard to the past six centuries of the Ottoman rule:
“We have a State (Devlet) of six centuries’ duration,
JOSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM GI, nor
“but what was it? It is easier to tell what it was
wás not a Turkish State. There was a nation, but it had no Government. There was a Government, but it was the enemy of the people. The Seljuk Turks established a Government, but sacrificed nationality. There was no more Turkey. It was Ottoman Govern- ment. ... This Government had four sources of power—the Palace, the Army, the Medresseh, and the Anderoum. The Palace had Sultans whose pedigree was supposedly Turkish. It was a place filled with men and women collected from all the corners of the East and West. The backbone of the army was com- posed of the Yenitcheris, who were not Turks, but children gathered from all quarters. The Medressehs were places of Arabic. and Persian culture.. The Anderoum which supplied the political officials of
the Sublime Porte was composed of boys selected from among the slaves. This Government not only did not become Turkish, but became an enemy to Turkism. They regarded the very word Turk as synonymous with ignorance, impoliteness, and idiocy. To call a man “Turk’ was regarded as a great dishonour to him.
“Our great poets have even ridiculed Turkism. The great poet Nefi says: ‘God has deprived the Turk of the spring of understanding.’ Our poet Yahyia takes pride himself in his Albanian origin, and says: ‘My origin and ancestry is Albanian.’
“The late Balkan War became a blessing to us, although it was a calamity politically. After that war Ottomanism and Islamism began to collapse. Mohammedjik saw in that war that the Albanian,
ee \2\ - MOSLEM MENTALITY SI, co religionist, stabbed him in the back. Th
war we understood that we had to trust ourselves only. There was no other way. . .. The power of the Committee of Union and Progress was in this national colour of the whole movement. . . . We had found our national ego.”
These words are really sufficient as indicating the rise of the new spirit of nationalism among the Turks.
Let me quote Ismail Safa, the Minister of Educa- tion at Angora in 1923. Emphasizing the nationalistic principles of education in the new Turkey, he said:
“Tn everything we shall try to be strong and perse-
. vering, because we have rights to protect and ideals Satö realize. Weakness is the mother of all calamities. _ Strength teaches a man responsibility, self-confidence, ~ and how to protect his rights. This will be our aim and principle in all our education in the coming years. We have many enemies outside our lands. We need to be unified with a national feeling in our country.”
Another official of that same pat spoke more plainly:
“We are in a state of nationalism. Our educational! aims will be humanitarian, but at the same time very nationalistic. In place of an artificial education, a civilized and liberal education; in place of the old cosmopolitan elements, a modern Turkish gentleman. These are what we are seeking for.... We can summarize our whole educational system in two words: National Culture and Modernized Teaching. In this path of national culture and national education we shall take into consideration all the emotional, religious,
“hational culture into one.”
Ismet Pasha, the Prime Minister of Turkey, spoke
the following words at a Teachers’ Conference: |
“You are the workers who will lead these people to the highest levels of civilization. Your responsibility is very heavy. You have great obstacles before you. - . - In the past we had been entangled in such a
complexity of ideas that it was necessary for us to get
rid of them. On this path of national education we shall never recognize any obstacle. . . . We want a national education, and we shall follow this ideal at any cost.” | The éditor of the daily paper Son Sa’at made the following comment on these words of Ismet Pasha: ~The conception and sense of nationality is a new thing in Turkey. It has only been born during the
Great War. It is this nationalism that has led us from `
calamities to victories. National feeling has Saved Turkey from slavery. and given her independence, It has saved us from death and has brought us to life. We are obliged to be extremely nationalistic in order to make up for our lack of it in the past. It is the duty of our teachers to bring up the new generation as extreme nationalists,” 1
We find these same ideas expressed by most of the modern writers. Theyallstand for nationalism through and through. Certainly every people has a sight to
* See the present writer’s article in the International Review of Missions, April 1926, p. 184.
e k F P T we aim to fuse all these elements
MOSLEM MENTALITY
wuerish a consciousness of their national exi E ae hat s quite a legitimate desire, and the Turks fight to it like other peoples. But surely this feeling of nationalism has its limits, and its value depends on its motives and aims. The Moslem nationalists think that they have been wronged by others, that the stronger nations have usurped their rights in the past; therefore they ought to defend themselves against these nations, and even redress the old wrongs as the opportunity may present itself} They think that their lack of power is due to their lack of the spirit of nation- alism, so they want to inflame this spirit of nationalism ~ in the hearts of every Moslem. But when so doing the Turks forget that it was their ancestors who invaded = the peaceful homelands of the peoples in Asia Minor ~ and the Balkans, and deprived them of their right to ` freedom. The history of the Turkish invasion and rule jn Asia Minor and the Balkans is a clear evidence of this fact. It was the Turks who came from the East . 1 and invaded the lands and usurped the rights of other peoples, and it is only by hard struggles that some ~ of these nations have been able to regain their inde- pendence. Moreover, the attitude of the nationalistic Turks to the Minorities in their territories. is very important in these respects. The Ottoman Turks invaded and oppressed; but did the nationalist Turks do otherwise? The key to the massacres of the Arme- nians in recent years is to be found in this extreme nationalistic feeling grafted on to the old religious fanaticism, The true test of a just Government is to be found in its attitude to the Minorities in its territory,
fOSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM
Vitis a fact that in no Moslem land have the MOrities enjoyed justice and enjoyed safety as to their property, honour, or-their life. The nationalist Turks deported, plundered, and butchered more than a million Christians cold-bloodedly without any sense of wrong at all. There has not been one word of moral judgment uttered by the Turks on these things. One can understand somewhat such things between two nations who are at war, and attack one another, but to butcher tens of thousands of men and women and children who had had nothing to do with politics, and had been perfectly faithful subjects, to confiscate ~ their goods and capture their property and not to pay one penny back, and to banish the rest, is surely not justice. The Turks wanted Turkey for the Turks only; that was nationalism, and it is conceivable that they had a right to do it, but the methods they used to accomplish it were simply barbaric. I remember in the last days of December 1915, on a cold morning of the winter, with snow everywhere, we got up and saw our streets placarded by the order of the Turkish Governor that all Christians must leave the city and go out into exile in a few days’ time. During those next days I saw thousands of men, women, and children wrapped in old clothing, bare-footed, expelled from the town by the Turkish gendarmerie, and robbed _ and killed outside the city. The next morning, after
its final accomplishment, the Governor said that he was quite satisfied, and felt happy about it. A few weeks later I met Mustafa Effendi, one of the leadiny mem- bers of the Committee of Union and Progress, a man
MOSLEM MENTALITY
ehad had a finger in planning these thing k -saw him talking about these things with a frien of his. The friend asked whether these things were just. He said: “As a human being I give them bread, — but as an official I banish them to die.” That is the inner side of the Turkish nationalism. The modern Turkish leader does not care whether a thing is just or unjust, right or wrong. He does not care for such © scruples! He is a nationalist through and through; he has no other principle. He believes that human nature is essentially egoistic and selfish, and will always be ` so everywhere. He believes that the law of the jungle governs international relationships. He believes that this is human nature, and it is useless to lament over it or to try to change it. He accepts it as it is, and works | accordingly. He thinks men are by nature enemies, and States are following a policy of spoliation; that _ the binding power between the peoples is only selfish ~ interest and economic advantage; so one thing is necessary: to preserve and strengthen the national feeling, and to follow it without any moral discrimi- `” nation. He has a patriotism.which makes no discrimina- i tion in regard to the rights of others and to the sense of justice. The modern Turk is Spinozian in his con- ception of the national life; he simply ignores the ethical element. | The daily Zgdam, in its editorial (November 11, 1927), after discussing the Budget of the Turkish Republic for 1927, and mentioning that whereas £82,000,000_- "had been expended for military purposes, and only about £4,000,000 for agriculture, and £6,500,000 for!
lòn, asks very poignantly, “Can such a cou 2 saé for the future?” Can it be safe? That is the question. |
Let us take the modern attitude towards education. There’ is a great awakening in Moslem lands with regard to education. People have begun to appreciate the value of education, and there is an intense desire for knowledge everywhere. Moslems have begun to realize that in order to hold an honourable place among the civilized nations, they must be educated. Large sums have been appropriated for this purpose by the Governments, and schools of all grades are being started everywhere. In Turkey the old Medres- sehs have been closed, and the educational system has been reorganized on Western lines. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, in one of his public addresses, spoke as follows on this subject: “We desire to hold an honourable place among the civilized nations. How could we keep the | education of our children separated by two — institutions—one called the School and the other Medresseh—so fundamentally different from each other? It would be absurd to think of unifying our nation in spirit and in thought unless we unified our education and teaching.”! The department of the Ministry of Education at Angora has shown great activity in erecting new school buildings, in calling commissions of experts to examine the school Programmes and to revise them in new linés—in publishing new textbooks, in translating standard books from the European languages, and in reorganiz-
f@OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM SL nt
* Daily paper Djumhuriyet, August 29, 1925.
MOSLEM MENTALITY nd
-ment has spread all over the Moslem ends of the Near ` _ East. In Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Egypt, there is an earnest hunger on the part of the people for modern education. In Cairo to-day, by the Al Azhar, the oldest and the greatest centre of Moslem scholastic training, the Egyptian Goyernment has created a national university to be developed on modern lines. There is no doubt that the change in the Moslem attitude toward education at the present time is very striking. Just before the war I knew of a Moslem father _who sent his son to a Government school where every- thing was free. The boy came home one day and told ihe father that he had learned something new, that the earth revolved round the sun and not the sun round the earth. The father, as soon as he heard this, got exceedingly angry, rebuked the boy, cursed the school, and took the boy out of the school. There was a caricature in the comic Turkish paper Karaguez recently (December 1926) to show how much the whole mentality has been changed now. The picture shows a Moslem Hoja, with a big turban, sitting on the globe, and the globe standing on the horns of an ox. Suddenly an earthquake happens; the globe moves; then the Hoja says: “What must these unbelievers fe done this time that the yellow ox moved his head again!” The caricature says: “Awake, Hoja, awake! and go and learn from the children at the primary school why earthquakes happen!” This shows the great change in the mentality of the people with regard to education. To-day Moslem fathers are making great sacrifices to
OSLEM MENTALITY—A ancy, veir children modern education. In one t “Asia Minor where there was an American College
hardly two or three Moslem boys attended the College. To-day there are over one hundred young men from
- that town sent out to Constantinople and Europe to
receive Western education. This shows a great change
in Moslem mentality toward education.
But there remains still the important question with regard to this desire for education: what is its aim and
Motive? What is the aim of education as understood. by modern Moslem leaders? Is it mere knowledge,
or something deeper than that? Is it merely scientific, or has it a moral purpose also? Why do the Moslem
" peoples want to be educated? That is the important - question before us.
Speaking €r Turkey, and out of my own experience, I am fully convinced that the chief defect of the pre-war educational system was not so much in the Programme or the equipment of the schools, but in the lack of moral emphasis both in the outlook of the teachers and the pupils. Let me mention one or two
incidents to explain this point. An Armenian teacher
Of music in the Government Normal School once heard
the pupils using bad language to one another in
Ordinary conversation. They were using such immoral
_ Words that this Armenian teacher was shocked, and
thinking that the Director did not know about it, Went to him one day and told him how these boys who
, Were going to be teachers in schools in the future were
using such bad language and immoral language to one another, The Director immediately got angry, and
MOSLEM MENTALITY G í “Make a list of these boys, and bring it t l,
“I will do so and so to them,” using the most immoral words about the boys. He did it quite uncon- —
. sciously. Using bad words, cursing one another with immoral terms, had become a habit with the Director as well as with the pupils. They learned science and pedagogy, but that did not affect their character.
During the war I taught for three years in a well-
organized Turkish Government High School, and I came across some incidents which opened my eyes to this aspect of the educational system among Moslems in contrast with the Christian schools. There were a
few thousand, volumes of good books taken from the houses of the deported Armenians and stored in one of the school-rooms. They were supposed to be classi- — fied and form a library for the school, but the books ` began to disappear one by one. One day we found a few copies in the bag of one of the pupils, the son of the — chief Mufti of the town. He had stolen the books from the room and taken them away without any permission. The Director took the books back from this boy, but never spoke a word of condemnation. Then I under- stood that teachers themselves had been doing the same thing. They were taking the books away from the supposed library and selling them in the market for a few pennies. One day the Director called me and spoke to me about this matter, gave me the key to the room, and told me to be responsible for it. He had full confidence in me; he knew that I would not take | away the books. But one day the Director himself | indicated to me in our conversation that I should
„a a a -Ti
a es
le eee E:
sme of the books and bring the money to |
is was very shocking to me! It opened my eyes to see
how the whole system was corrupt from top to bottom. There was a lecturer of Physics at the school, a man
of high education, and a graduate of Constantinople
University. He was supposed to teach Physics to the
pupils. He knew his subject well; I do not think he
lacked knowledge, but he was a man who lacked character. Every day he came ten or fifteen minutes later than the hour assigned, and not content with the
_ loss of ten minutes in each hour, he turned the hands»
of the clock ten or fifteen minutes forward in order to
finish the class soon! Everybody knew about it, and.
they laughed when they came out of the classroom ; they were even pleased with it. Anyhow, the Director never spoke one word to that man about this thing; he himself was also pleased. Again, there was a system
that the teachers should sign in the official class-book -
that the lessons had been taught regularly, and then the Director had to examine the books and sion that the teachers had done their duties faithfully and taught the lessons. It was a good system, but it did not help the teachers to be punctual. After having seen these things, I felt convinced that the chief defect was not with the programme of the school. The programme and the schedule were really good, and they did not differ Much from our College curriculum and system. The Chief trouble was with the character of the teac hers; they did not do their work faithfully. Some of them ‘pent their nights in drinking and other vices, and came to the school next morning with red eyes and
OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM GI ìi
t
A)
at could one expect of such a school system? Yet it is these same men who are serving to-day in the Government schools as teachers. The programme and system may all have been renewed, but what is the use if the men are the same? What good can one expect out of the work of teachers with such bad character? A prominent Turkish official, who sent his son and daughter to the American schools and not to the Turkish schools, said one day before the war, in private conversation: ‘“We have no schools. We have no morality.” That is the chief problem with the Turkish education. You can have good school buildings, good programmes, and up-to-date equipments, but if you do not have character, faithfulness, and. honesty, you cannot build up a school and give true education. How
the Turk will get these moral vitamines I do not really
know, but that is the heart of the whole problem.
Let us carry our investigation further. What is really the motive of this desire for education specially in the minds of the leaders of the country? Let us try to follow the logic of their minds. The Turkish leaders say that they have analysed Western civilization and
have found that its source was in the Renaissance of
the sixteenth century. Further, they have discovered that the Renaissance took its life from the Greek and Roman cultures. They are convinced also that the essence of the Greek and Roman cultures was intel- lectual and scientific, and not moral or spiritual; so the Moslem leaders strive for such a scientific awakening among their peoples.
vee MOSLEM MENTALITY Q = woken nerves. Some of the students did the same
ee il n O
$
(OV MOSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM GI,
wlehmed Emin Bey, at a Conference at the Stambout iversity, said: “Modern modes of thinking about life, government, and religion differ- immensely from. those of the Middle Ages in their essence and quality
. and all civilized nations are united now in their new mentality. This has been the result of the Renais- sance of the sixteenth century. Therefore, if Turkey `- desires to hold a place of honour among the civilized nations, she ought to adopt this kind of thinking and reasoning.” 1
It is very interesting that Abel Adam, in his book quoted above, in stating the essentials in this awaken-
ing, mentions: Knowledge, Science, Finance, and some other things, but does not mention Morality and Character.
Agha Oghlou Ahmed, in his editorjal on “The Modern State,” in the daily paper Milliyet (October 24, 1926), mentions six things which are considered as essential in Ismet Pasha’s programme for modern Turkey. They are:
1. Complete independence.
2. Security in the country: 3. Modern laws.
4. Roads.
5. Credit.
6. Knowledge or Education.
He has no place for a moral change ‘as an indis- Pensable thing for the new Turkey. I believe this is
t Daily paper Vagt, July 11, 1925; G
MOSLEM
fENTALITY © | e Moslem writers and 1 Sy
fe present time. They think that the Western civili- | zation is merely science applied to life. Surely this idea | _ 1s a false interpretation of Western civilization. I know two towns in Asia Minor, fifty kilometers apart, both — good flourishing towns with some 60,000 population each. The Turkish Government wanted to build a. road connecting these. For the last two generations the people have paid a special tax every year for the building of this road, but it has never been finished. The money has gone into the pockets of the officials. | The Turkish engineers did their work so poorly that 1 before they finished the last section it was necessary * to begin again from the first. It is a challenge to the | Turks that part of the road built by the Romans in _ that same place still stands firm, defying the storms of | . many centuries. So it has always been. You may have © money, knowledge, and science, but if you do not have honesty and faithfulness you cannot build an ordinary | road. If mere science and money cannot build a road, | _ certainly they-cannot build up a nation. A society is built upon spiritual foundations, not merely on material things. Science and wealth cannot save a | country; you need something deeper and greater. i Human life is spiritual in its essence. Personality is | not merely Physics and Mathematics; it is essentially | moral. The Moslem educators ought to realize this fact. The late James Bryce speaks with a keen insight when he says: “‘Education, that 1s to say the education given by schools and books, signifies less than we like | to think. . . . The glib talk, common in our time, |
we ani
iy WOSLE NTALITY—A CRITICISM GI. awik suggests that education will solve the probleh
he backward races, misleads us by its overestimate. of the value of reading and writing for the purposes of politics.” 1 Let us take the new laws. It is amazing to see the rapidity with which modern laws are being adopted by Moslem States. The Persian and Egyptian Govern- ments, still retaining Islam as their basis, have adopted many Western laws in the administration of their countries. But the most astonishing changes have occurred in Turkey, where Islamic Shariah has alto- ` _ gether been discarded, in fact, thrown away with con- tempt, and the new Western laws have been adopted in wholesale measure. Article 1 of the Constitution reads: “The Turkish State is a Republic.” This abolishes the Sultanate and makes the old Turkey a Democracy. Article 112 of the new civil code reads: ** Marriage shall be void if husband or wife be already married at the time of the marriage ceremony.” “This article in one sentence makes the old Moslem polygamy illegal and unjust. Article 129 of the same code reads: ` “Either party (husband or wife) may appeal and demand divorce when one commits adultery.” In one stroke this puts husband and wife.on the same plane as before the laws, and gives the wife all the rights of the husband. Article 75 of the new Turkish Constitution reads: “No one may be molested on account of his religion, his sect, his ritual} or his Philosophic convictions.” This breaks the old Moslem fanaticism by which the punishment for apostacy from
+ Cf, Modern Democracies, James Bryce, vol ii, p. 550.
$
bo): ` MOSLEM MENTALITY Gf slam was death, and leaves the individuals fre | ollowing the religion or creed they like.
These are most amazing changes in the Moslem States, and the new Moslem leaders are to be praised
. for their courage and their open-mindedness in abolish- ing the old laws and bringing these new ones into the administration of their countries and applying them to their community life. But these changes must not dazzle our eyes and prevent our seeing issues which go deeper than the mere adoption of new laws. It is a very good thing to have modern laws and up-to-date | Constitutions abolishing the old despotisms, granting : personal liberty to every citizen, Moslem or Christian, _ on an equal basis, enfranchising women and giving them equal rights with men, etc., etc., but there are other questions which are essentially important in determining whether these laws shall become dead words or real life in these countries. It is not the first time that liberal Constitutions have been promulgated in Moslem lands but have failed. The execution of these laws depends on their sources and motives. = Why are these laws- being adopted, and what is. the motive behind them? These are the real questions in deciding the fate of these laws. Personal liberty, emancipation of women, etc., ideas of liberty, equality, and justice are ultimately spiritual in their essence, and can only be established through a change in the moral and spiritual outlook of men. There must be a
/ deep sense of the sacredness of human personality in order to realize liberty and equality. Do we find that sense inspiring these reforms? Islam has essentially `
OSLEM MENTALITY—A eee
a system of force, and the Moslem rulers
wh the habit of appealing to force in dealing with the problems of human relationships. Do we see among Moslem leaders a tendency to check that habit, and appeal to reason and conviction? It is good to abolish polygamy and to grant freedom to women, but this will fall far short of establishing right family life in Moslem lands. Western family life is based on deeper principles than the mere abolition of polygamy. We
_ ought to recognize the divine in women as well as in men. Do we find that spiritual tone in the minds of the Moslem leaders? Human passion breaks all bridles. Ii polygamy is forbidden by-law, sensuality finds worse ways for its expression, and the latter condition may become worse than the former.
Or take the problem of justice. Many Moslem States have modified and changed the old Moslem laws. It would be absurd to apply them to the cases and problems of modern social conditions. They have new commercial laws, and the Turks adopted the Italian criminal law in place of the old. These new laws are
certainly a great improvement on the old, but good laws remain futile if the Judges are not just and good. The chief trouble in Turkey in the past was not so much the laws as with the Judges themselves. A Judge needs a deep sense of right and wrong, a great respect for justice, in order to execute justice, and the Moslem Judges lack that very much.
In 1924 there was a discussion of a scandalous case in the Turkish papers. It seems that some deputies of the Angora Government had taken bribes, and let a
MOSLEM MENTALITY
‘rich Armenians enter Constantinople. The ame so evident that all the papers began to discuss it openly. The Angora Government was much dis- tressed by these things, and the Minister of Justice, Refiq Bey, came to Constantinople to deal with this matter among other things. A reception was given in his honour by the Turkish Press leaders, and there he made an address in which. he, in referring to this question, spoke thus; “Honourable Sirs: I am one of those who have followed this matter very carefully in all its details. ~ I am sorry to say that we have discovered signs of filth < in this matter, although we have had no proofs to 3 . judge legally the responsible persons. . . . However, I want to remind you honourable representatives of the Press that such vices as bribery and other misuses are to be found in all countries, they are universal diseases, and humanity is impotent to find any cure for these things. Such vices are in the country of Hotten- tots and in Great Britain; they are in Turkey also.” } And the matter was closed. l _ This does not show a strict sense of justice on the part of the Turkish Minister of Justice surely. There. may be graft in Great Britain and other countries, but no Minister in a British Cabinet would dare publicly to minimize or close such a scandalous matter, In order that good laws should be enforced, there must be a deep sentiment on the part of the Judges and the people to respect these laws, and a sincere desire for justice and righteousness. * Repeated in Tanin, August 10, 1924.
OSLEM MENTALITY—A CRITICISM
might carry this investigation further and a if t6the other aspects of the reforms and changes in Moslem lands, but this is sufficient to show where the real trouble lies. It is the moral degeneration of the Moslem life, and any cure or method will remain superficial unless there comes about a regeneration. in Moslem character. The greatest thing needed in Moslem lands is a new moral consciousness, a new sense of right and wrong. These changes may destroy the people’s beliefs in the old Islamic way of life, but they will not alone be sufficient to construct a better way of life. Something more than mere changes of laws and regulation is needed to produce a new life. What the eminent editor of the Turkish daily Jgdam said in one of his editorials is quite true: “New laws are important, but they are not sufficient. . . . I am sure that after our adoption of the Swiss Code, divorces will not be | less among us than before. . . . Divorcing had become almost a joke, a habit with us. Recently we read that a villager had married and divorced seventeen wives. - - . We must reform all our social life. . . . In our country we have not yet been able to prevent our people from spitting or cleansing out their noses on to the streets. There are many who do not even carry a handkerchief. To change our habits, we shall need perhaps a century still.” 1 | It is a hopeful sign that this need of a moral basis for civilized life is being felt more and more in Moslem circles. We shall deal with it more fully in the next chapter.
* “ Our Laws and our Habits,” Igdam, December 24, 1925.
GL
‘THE MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION
CHAPTER IV
Surety the most interesting thing among the move- ments in Moslem lands at the present time is the new attitude of Moslems toward Islam and to religion in general. There is a new mentality toward Islam which ought to be considered very carefully. Islam was
porn in Arabia, and the original idea of the founder
“was perhaps to unify all Arabia under a new faith
_ which would appeal to all its inhabitants. He died
__ in 632 a.p., being the ruler of Mecca and Medina and
the Holy Brine, By that time he had extended his power over nearly the whole peninsula, but outside Arabia Islam was almost unknown. He sent an expe-
_ dition to Muta, halfway between Damascus and “Medina, but it resulted in the defeat of his army and the loss of his most prominent men, Zaid and Ja’fer.
Then he himself conducted a campaign to Tabuk,
= 630 A.D., but returned without coming into collision with he Syrian forces. Thus at the time of his death Islam was Arabian, and Arabia was Islam.
However, after his death events began to change very quickly. Under the direction of the succeeding rulers, Islam began to extend itself very rapidly outside the boundaries of Arabia. Between 634 and 638 A.D, all Palestine and Syria, including the great centres Damascus and Jerusalem, came under the Moslem
OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION Gr, {iy the battle of Kadisieh, 635 a.p., the fate\e “Persian Empire was determined. In 641 A.D.
Alexandria was captured. Between 641 and 681 A.D. the Moslem armies reached the shores of the Atlantic. | In 712 A.D. Spain was invaded, and in 720 A.D. the Moslems reached the Pyrennes. In 720 A.D. France also was invaded, and the invasion was stopped only by the defeat of the Moslem armies in 732 A.D. by Charles Martel. Thus, one hundred years after the death of Mohammed, Islam had extended its dominion from Persia in the East as far as France in the West. This was an amazing success indeed, but it had its reaction also. These countries were great centres of old civiliza- tions. As Islam came into contact with all these old civilizations, and their ideas and culture, it was obliged to face new problems and struggle to adjust itself to them, Islam’s contact with the Persian, the Roman, and the Greek culture caused not a little disturbance within Islam itself. There arose many sects in Islam, especi- ally in the first few centuries, with all sorts of heretical ideas. The Orthodox Caliphs ruled in Medina from 632 to 661 A.D.; the Umayyad Caliphs ruled in Damascus from 661 to 750 a.p.; and the Abbasid Caliphs ruled in Bagdad from 750 to 1258 AD. The Orthodox Caliphate in Medina was chiefy Arab; the Umayyad Caliphate came into contact with the Byzantine, the Roman, and the Greek culture through the Christians in Syria; and the Abbasid Caliphs in Bagdad came under Persian influence. The history of thought in Islam during these periods is very interest- ing; we see how the Moslems were disturbed by all
MOSLEM MENTALITY
ee sé new ideas; how inner struggles arose
a i wae
am itself; how religious beliefs were discussed in- tensely; and how ultimately all the new ideas were suppressed and Islam took the final rigid form which it has kept till the present time.
In order to understand the Moslem mind with regard to religion, we must remember that Islam is a religion which dominates all aspects of life. It regulates the larger events of life, as well as the
minutest affairs of daily conduct. A Moslem’s lying ©
down and rising, sitting and walking, dressing and - eating, in fact every phase of his conduct, is dictated “by Islam. Those of us who have been born in free Christian homes can hardly imagine what religion means in a Moslem’s life. Orthodox Islam has two sides—the first is the religious and the doctrinal side: it relates to God and the future life. The other is the religious ordinances, rules, and regulations that control worship, prayer,-and general conduct to the -minutest details. These two are mixed together in a Moslem’s idea of religion. Prayer is a spiritual thing,
it relates to God; yet it is closely related in Islam to
one’s dress or physical condition. It is spiritual, yet it is conditioned by certain ordinances very strictly. I have a book in my hand on Worship and its Regulations, printed at Constantinople in 1916, and accepted as a textbook in the secondary schools. Let us see what it says about prayer.
Right at the outset the book lays down the vnikcipil _that ‘Prayer and Namaz cannot be offered without legal purification ° (p. 25). This leads immediately
“=
aes
OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION GL t
‘problem of purification. If prayer canno feréd without purification, then naturally “What is purification?” asks the author, and he gives the follow- ing answer: ‘“‘Purification is getting rid of the im- purities caused by the body, the clothing, -etc., and this purification can be acquired through washing with water.” But the problem is not finished there. If purification is to be gotten through water, we must know what kind of water is to be used: and’ a whole chapter in the book is given to the question what is clean water that can be used for legal purification, and what water cannot be used. In Christian coun- tries people would appeal to chemical analysis, but in Islam that cannot be done. The Moslem religious books have many minute regulations in deciding the clean- ness of a water-for legal purification. Water is divided into five or six or even seven different kinds: good water, unclean water, uncertain water, water that can be used, water that cannot be used, etc. Our book ) defines clean water as follows: Te
“Clean waters are waters which have not been mixed with foreign matters; such are the waters of the lakes, the sea, the rivers, and the wells. Purification can be gotten by washing with these waters.”
But this does not finish the matter. Suppose you wanted to wash by a pond, and you saw a cat or a hen or a pig or a horse running into it, or suppose a cat or a hen or a mouse fell into the well, what then? Would such a water be clean for purification ar not? Could you wash yourself with it and offer your prayer, Or not? These are important matters, and are dis-
~ MOSLEM MENTALITY G ed minutely in Moslem books. With rega L fhings waters, our book says: “Running water is clean unless you see dirt in it.” All Moslems believe in this principle whole-heartedly. In the Moslem quarters of a town in Asia Minor the water having been used in one house runs into the next house, and so on through all the houses, and the people use the dirty water of the preceding house. But they do not mind; so long as it is running water, it cannot hold dirt—that is the idea. The Moslems living in that quarter of the town have suffered terribly from epidemics such as cholera and typhoid fever, and every year there is a heavy _ toll of death from these diseases; but they have never | changed the system, because it is their religious con- viction that running water does not contain dirt. But what about the stagnant waters: are they clean? The law says: “If it has a surface of 100 square arshouns (one arshoun is less than one yard) or more, it is clean as the running water; but if it has a surface less than _ that (its depth does not matter!) it is unclean.” Our _ book gives such rules as the following: “If you cook peas in the water in a pot, the water is unclean and _ cannot be used for purification ; but if you simply wash peas in water in a basin, the water is clean and can be used for purification.” Again the law says: “If a hen or a mouse falls into a pond (there are many hens and mice in Moslem houses), forty pails of water must be drawn from the well in order that the water may be available for purification ; but if the hen or the mouse or the sparrow is swollen dead in the well, the whole well must be emptied; and if that is impossible,
OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION. GL a
st/three hundred pails of water must be dr he well.” Then there are minute regulations as to. how to purify one’s self after the moving of the bowels or passing water. (These sections are not decent for translation.) The law says: “In the absence of water, stones may be used, but not bones or cotton or paper.” After having found the water, the question comes as to how to wash one’s self properly with water in order to be purified, and there are detailed régulations for this. You must be careful lest there should be some foreign matter left under your wedding-ring! The rules are so minute. Then the question comes as to how many times a day one should repeat this washing. What are the things which cause contamination and pollute one, and make re-washing necessary? There are many things mentioned in the law about this, such as the moving of the bowels, childbirth, etc., which pollute and call for repeated purification. You see, we have not yet begun to pray! . i But suppose we have the purification, the important ‘question still remains as to how to pray in a way that would be legally right and acceptable to God. This is a most serious question in Islam, and there are long discussions on this subject. Our book mentions forty things at the time of prayer which spoil prayer, and it is noteworthy that all are related to the physical life. For example, to talk at the time of prayer, even _ to whisper two words to gome ooa to salute ‘some- body passing by; to scratch one’s self three times; to Set in order one’s dress with both hands; to take into | the mouth a small thing, such as sesame and to
(Wig!) MOSLEM MENTALITY I. >> eat it. A thing left in the mouth does not
one’s prayer, unless it is as big as chick-pea and is - chewed; to cough without any excuse; to laugh; to lal a flea, etc. All these things spoil prayer and make it unacceptable to God. This brief description of the pegerem of prayer shows how minutely Islam controls one’s life.
But besides these rules and regulations in religious affairs, Islam hás definite regulations governing human relationships also, such as laws of inheritance, the criminal law, etc., which decide all problems in - Moslem lands. For example, the Koran orders that a ~ thief must have both his hands cut for his crime, and the Wabhabi Ruler is trying to execute this law in Arabia to-day. There are minute laws for the division of one’s property among his children, and regulating family relations for legacies, for buying and selling, etc.
In a book published recently by the Angora Ministry of Religious Affairs, under the title Religous Lessons, a book te be used as a textbook in the Moslem sokea Islam is defined as follows:
“Religion has three fundamental aspects:
I. Problems relating to pure beliefs and doctrines ;
2, Problems relating to conduct and the prac- tice of such things as worship, social and judicial laws, civic and political life, etc.
3. Problems relating to morals.
“Thus Islam has a system of doctrinal belief; Islam has morals based on these beliefs; and Islam.
{OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION GL pocial and political system arising out of t ciples.” yf. . According to this definition it would not be an exaggeration to say that Islam controls the whole of human life. In fact, it is one of the chief prides of the Moslems to say that whereas Christianity has doctrines and beliefs merely, Islam has in addition all the necessary regulations for life.
This was the Orthodox attitude in Islam to religion. But as’the Moslems came into contact with modern cultures and civilizations, these rules and regulations in Islamic law, adapted essentially to the desert life, were found to be impractical by the Moslems. Their social customs, new dress, and civilized habits of life were incompatible with these regulations of religion; so modern Moslem States are seriously facing that difficulty at the present time. Turkey, being the nearest Moslem State to the West, and in close contact with r Europe, has felt the inadequacy of these Islamic regulations long before the others. During the last hundred years or more the Turks have been'adopting modern European customs, laws, and regulations, and have been struggling to adjust Islam to these new ideas and systems. Since the days of Tanzimat there have been quite a few upheavals and even revolutions in Turkey as a result of this struggle. The famous | Gulhane Hatti Humayun, issued by Sultan Mahmoud, was a step in this direction. It proclaimed equality to all citizens of Turkey without any distinction of race =- Or religion. In 1878 the establishment of a Consti-
tutional Monarchy with a Parliament was another
| MOSLEM MENTALITY » G \“tperiment in this direction. In 1908 the Com L “of Union and Progress tried again to reorganize the country on the model of Western countries, but all these efforts and experiments have failed, and Turkey has remained very little changed indeed. The chief defect of these movements was that they tried to make a _ synthesis between Islam and Western life. ‘They did not want to touch the religious views of the peoples, and yet they wanted to introduce new ideas and methods into social and civic life. They forgot that Islam ruled the minds of the people, and that new ideas and methods would soon come into clash with the Moslem men- “tality, and people would ultimately stand for their
be religious beliefs. ‘hese renovators thought that they
. might leave the people their Moslem mentality, yet Westernize the country. They tried to strike a happy compromise between the two, but it failed. In books written before the war with the aim of awakening the country to new ideas and introducing new methods, we find again and again this belief emphasized that there is nothing in Islam which is incompatible with Western culture, and Islam and progress can go happily ~ hand in hand, Ismail Hakky Bey, a Professor of Edu- cation at the Stamboul Unrtiversity, in his pamphlet — Religion and Life, printed 1923, discusses the modern tendencies among the Moslem youth with regard to religious beliefs specially, and after examining Islam from the point of view of Science, Æsthetics, Sociology, and even Evolution, he stresses the point that Islam_ is compatible with all these new developments, and there is nothing in Islam to hinder progress. He
| MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION L
a aeons’ that one can accept all the results of mo “eseience and its bearing on thought, yet can remain a devout Moslem. He says: i
“We Turks have become Moslems, and this is’ not by mere chance or ignorance. It is a natural and neces- sary thing for us. We are Moslems because we are ourselves,”’:
Another well-known writer, Ibrahim Hilmi Bey, in his book on Huropeanization, repeats all through the book this same idea with great emphasis. He says: rt
“To become Europeanized is the only way of salva- tion for us. We must welcome the civilization of the West. Our whole trouble has come from our Eastern mentality; therefore we ought to be Westernized.””
Again: “I never find Westernization opposed to my religion. I have lived among Christians for twenty- five years, and I have not lost any of the fundamentals’ of my religion. Whatever else we become, we can keep. two things together permanently—our nationality and our religion.”
Again: “Islam shall one day rule over all the world, The religious, social, and moral laws of Islam form the
Soundest bases for modern civilization. All Moslems must return to the pure and simple original form of Islam at the time of the Prophet. We must follow his life. Even modern civilization has taken its soundest Principles from the Moslem civilization. . . ..To be Europeanized will never lessen the value and impor- tance of our religion, No religion is so fitted to reyolu- * CE. Religion and Life, Ismail Hakki, 1923, p. 25; H
MOSLEM MENTALITY and developments as Islam. Mohammed E
will grow in power, and Stamboul will be the centre of Turkism and Islam.’’!
Emir Ali, in his well-known book The Spirit of Islam, tries to advocate this same view. He says :
“The elasticity of laws is their great test, and this test is pre-eminently possessed by those of Islam. Their | paahi with progress şhows their founder’s wisdom.”
Many Moslem reformers and renovators haye worked -on this view, but all have failed. The central figure of
“Islatn is too rigid to admit such kindly praises! It will ~ not smile in response to such mild words!
The modern Moslems seem to haye passed that stage of compromise. The present movement is radi- cally different from those of the past. There is almost a complete revolution in Moslem thinking on this problem. The modern Moslem thinkers say: “Enough of this. compromise! We must give up Islam altogether as the social and practical basis of our life. Confine Islam merely to religious doctrines, relating to God and the next life, and adapt Western culture im, toto!” They want to separate Islam from national and civic life, confining its authority to matters relating only to’ belief. Let everybody believe as they like, but Islam must not be confounded with life. Here are some quotations showing this modern mentality :
“There is a group of people who accept religion only
* Cf. Europeanization, Ibrahim Hilmi, Constantinople, 1916, pp. 160, 174 177-
7
¿MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION L S
b niir sagh its forms, and do not want to give up the habits d' traditions of a thousand years ago... . They are prejudiced and are in the’ grip ofa blind ignorance which mixes this life and its affairs with those of the next world. These people. are not only enemies of _ revolution but also of progress, which is the result of
natural evolution everywhere. They think that religion
can be defended only by adhering to the old customs
and traditions which nomads of a thousand years ago
or more have bequeathed to.us. . . . They do not understand the idea of the gradual development and-
progress of humanity.
“Social customs are practices accepted by people
only because of their repetition by many peoples i throughout the ages. But in so far as our needs change, it is necessary that these customs also should change.
The same is true of traditions as well. Traditions are, in their origin, merely the results of material needs. They acquire sacredness as time passes, and people feel obliged to obey them as their sacred and religious duty; whereas traditions have changed and differed in the course of time and according to the place. The same tradition which may be sacred in one place may be altogether unimportant in another.
“An important factor in such beliefs is fear and
ignorance. ... Men are afraid to change them, because they eink these habits are based on inviolable CEES us ss Ze 0
“For the success of our Rev olution, ‘it Is necessary _ to show our people that their customs and traditions are merely disintegrating forces, and that there is
| MOSLEM MENTALITY S y thi g to fear in changing them for the sake k moet
ogress and development. . At a conference held at the Stamboul University
in July 1925, Mehmed Emin Bey, speaking on “‘the characteristics which differentiate modern life from the medieval,” said:
“What were the characteristic modes of thought and life at the time of thé Renaissance? Our age has its characteristic modes of thought about life, government, and religion. These differ from those of the Middle -Ages in their essence and quality. We ought to know these characteristics for the sake of our own present
~~ stage of life in Turkey. . . . The religious people of _to-day in thinking of TH oae of life as civil T laws, economics, hygiene, clothing, etc., decide them according to the exigencies of to-day only. In solving these problems they do not turn their eyes to the past and decide according to what a prophet or his disciple may have said ages ago. They simply consider the requirements of modern life and decide accordingly. All civiljzed nations of the present time are united ~ in this new mentality. This has been the result of a Renaissance in history. Therefore if Turkey to-day desires to hold an honourable place among the civilized nations, she ought to adopt and learn this kind of thinking and reasoning. This should be the aim of all
education.” ? Husein Souad Bey has written a dramatic poem
1 Cf. Resmli Ay, Constantinople, November 1925. Quoted also in i International Review of Missions, April 1926, by the present writer. 2 Cf. daily paper Vagt, July 11, 1925.
(OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION Edel e title of A Day in the Next World. In one o RL
as follows:
“Oh! What a pure life I feel nowin my soul! After coming here I learned that God was great. See what we have left behind! Verily, our brains were diseased and our eyes blind! We called God Infinite, unlimited by space; yet we constructed buildings of earth and called them ‘Houses of God.’ How ridiculous! Can the Infinite be put into a house? Monks in the desert light candles at the shrines and observe vigils. Call out to them, ‘It is enough!’ Let all the legends be swept
_ away, and let him who seeks God find Him in his own heart.’?2 i |
This last sentence is specially noteworthy ; it separates religion from all externality and finds it in the soul of man. Such a spiritual understanding of religion is quite foreign to ritualistic Islam.
Perhaps the attitude towards the Arabic language and script is very significant in this respect. In Islam it was held that the Koran must remain in Arabic, and must be read in Arabic, whether the reader ` understood it or not; that all sermons in the mosques must be delivered in Arabic from the old Homilies, and all prayers must be offered in Arabic; otherwise they would not be efficacious religiously. Religion was some- thing magical, embedded in the very words of the
| Arabic Koran and the prayers. All this has begun to change now in Turkey. There are a few translations of the Koran into Turkish now current; there are new
* Cf. daily paper Ahalk, February 16, 1926.
ground very quickly, and the whole system of using the Arabic script is hotly discussed in the Press. This is very important to show the new change in under- stending religion; that religion is not simply a thing to be efficacious like a charm by repeating some sentences, but it must come through reason and under- _ standing. With sarcasm one Turkish writer recently said: “It is a funny thing, really! We worship an Allah who addresses everybody in Arabic; in fact he does not know any other language but Arabic.”
The opinions expressed in Egypt by Shaykh Ali | > Abdur-Razzaq, who was a member of the Faculty of
-Al-Azhar University, and qadi of the Shariah Court of first instance at Mansurah, and. by Taha Husayn Effendi, Professor of Arabic Literature in.the Faculty of Letters of the University of Egypt, follow the same line as the Turkish modernists. Shaykh Ali, in his book Islam and the Foundations of the State: A Study of. the Galiphate-and Government of Islam, published in 1925, attacked the traditional theocratic basis of Islamic society, and stated that “The Shari Laws (Laws of Islam) were not given for the purpose of affecting the Laws of Government, that they were simply as guidance for the conduct of individuals; that the Caliphate was not an indispensable institution in Islam; in fact, Mohammed never contemplated it; this prophetic sovereignty was only spiritual, based on faith in Allah, whereas kingship was for this physical , life; the first is for religion and the heart, the other
men; one is Titan the other Poeci and they must not be mixed together. Mohammed was merely the Apostle of a religious message; he had nothing 'to do with a Kingdom, and never undertook to- establish a kingdom; he was a prophet like all other prophets,’’! | Taha Husayn, in his Essay on Pre-Islamic (Arabic) Poetry, published in 1926, criticized the old Moslem - tradition severely. He said that “there was not any
true evidence to prove the coming of Abraham and
Ishma’il to Mecca and building the Holy Shrine of ‘Ka’ba; that this was merely a tradition used in the Koran for a higher purpose; that the Prophet had taken this current tradition and used it against his enemies.” In the Court he stated that “the Azharist Ulema wanted the domination of religious traditions over science; that if science agreed with religious beliefs, it was to be accepted, otherwise it was to be rejeeted as false; whereas we want to separate the spheres of science and religion, and want to see science and scientific investigation making progres quite inde- pendently of religion.’’2
The criticism of Islam has not been confined, how- ever, to the intellectual viewpoint only. Signs of a moral criticism of Islam and its beliefs have also appeared in several articles, although one would wish that there were more. The leading person in this kind of criticism has been Dr, Abdullah Djevdet, the eminent editor
* Reported in the Turkish daily Vagt, August 11, 24, 1925. * Reported in Vagt, November 8, 1926.
AVC years. In March 1, 1922, in an editorial testing religions by their peace teaching, he wrote as follows on Mohammed:
“His apostleship (Mohammed) ordered that the tribe of Bani Quraizah should þe raided, the heads of their men should be cut off and be thrown into a ditch ; women and children should be made slaves and sold; and Raihana, the young and beautiful daughter of ’Amr, who was one of the eight hundred men whose heads were cut off and thrown into the ditch, should þe kept for himself, the Prophet.” ~ Abdullah. Djevdet Bey quoted this verbally from “the book of Abulfida,: the Arab historian, and said: - “Such an act cannot surely be reconciled with a spirit _ of mercy and love.” This was perhaps the bravest thing ever said by a Moslem with regard to the Prophet.
This article drew much attention and caused serious | discussions at Constantinople. However, nobody could
contradict or deny it. The article became famous, and there was so much demand for it that Dr. Djevdet Bey printed it a second time in April 15, 1927.
In another editorial he wrote as follows:
‘Only good can issue from God. God does not desire evil, and cannot be the creator of a thing which He does not desire. Writings on our foreheads can only be written after our deeds. . ... Behold non-Moslem Europe and Moslem Asia! There in Europe belief gives freedom and happiness, perseverance and
activity; here in Asia belief spells death and agony.
* Cf. Kitabal Mouktasar fi Ekhbar il besher, Abulfida, p. 69.
| MOSLEM MENTALITY . Turkish magazine [jihad during the last tw
~ Sl
OSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION {Ñ Ee
re=haye ascribed our losses and poverty to our
Soird of fasting, or fate, whereas it has been the result of our own inactivity and ignorance, and this idea has done us great harm. I want to uproot this’ belief, which kills and ruins and has poisoned us for many ages.
“I am not against religion or Islam; I am against unbelief. Unbeliefis to hide the truth, and we Moslems are unbelievers because we have liked hiding, the truth more than disclosing it, because we have not worked the works of belief. ... 1 want to speak frankly: there is no other country in the world SO devoid of faith as this country, and no country is so
much in need of faith as ours. England has not been born of a belief which has made people kneel at the feet of a material or spiritual idol, begging forgiveness for their sins and crimes. This beggar’s faith is the faith of all the Latin nations and of the present Moslems of the East. I want to have a faith which will give me Power to sacrifice myself for my country and «my
_ Nation, for liberty and humanity; a faith which will guide me in darkness and give me light. I want to be Sure that my predestination is all that I do, and that I can do everything that is predestined for me. To rise up to goodness and light is predestined for all men, and consequently there is a vast sphere of life and power fully open for our activity. This active and life-giving - faith is wholly divine, eternal and everlasting. Let us strive to impart this faith to our own people.”’t
In another editorial he wrote as follows:
t Cf, Ijtihad, December 1, 1925.
MOSLEM MENTALITY
‘The disintegration of the Turkish people i
fas been due chiefly to three causes, the first o
which is religious. A cloak cut and modelled for Arabia (i.e. Islam) has been forcibly put round our necks, and has kept us tied to our bedsteads, prevent- ing the free development of our normal and national abilities. God says in the Koran, ‘Verily we have sent down the Koran- in the Arabic language, so that you may understand it.’ From these words it is evident that the Koran has been addressed to the Arabs, and the Turks can have no share in it. In the early ages
of superstition it was only natural that each people should have a God of their own creation, and in that „case it was to be expected that the revengeful Arab _ should have a revengeful and mighty Allah. However = much we try to prove the unity of God, it is true that
_ there are as many gods as the number of men in the world. My own God is one who does only good, and is able to do everything that is good, who is sun by day and moon by night, who is eye to men and light to their eyes. This is the God whom the brave worship. Such is my God. My God is not the creator of evil. My God_is light to the eyes. He is the sun by day and the moon by night. If He does not prevent a disaster, He weeps together with those who suffer and need consolation.
“The Arabs have ruined us (the Turks) by forcing upon us an Allah of their own creation. This Allah does not lack some good and noble qualities, but He has attributes that have paralysed our national and normal growth. Our minds have remained puzzled
XOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION SL n
midst of contradictions. The Persian disi {is also due to the same thing.”
In another article the editor expressed his opinion still more emphatically in the following significant words;
“The value of religion lies not in the principles which religions lay down in their books, but in the expression Which they take in practical life. Especially in the East religion is merely a knowledge of the next world, and judging by its effects, religion has been a destroyer of life. The value of a religion ought to be judged by the progress and moral qualities which it ensures to its followers. The religion of a nation is the belief which dominates its life and actions. The beliefs which we Moslems have had in our souls and minds has brought us to very low places. Look what we sing in our holy festivities! ‘If the tongue with zeal would say ‘“‘Allah” Once, all sins would fall down as autumn leaves.’ No Principle more perverting to human morals could be found than this hymn. It simply means that one may injure people, commit theft and adultery, oppress the Poor, tell all sorts of lies, cheat simple people, hang them and kill them if possible, and yet by saying ‘Allah’ once, all sins are forgiven and disappear like dry leaves in autumn, and one becomes as clean as if one had done nothing. The Moslems in Persia, Bukhara, and Turkestan ,are still singing: ‘Religion and life are Be whosoever has religion cannot, have
‘Money.’ . . . I know that there are other factors also
-
* Cf. Tjtihad, August 1924. Quoted also in the present writer’s atticle in the International Review of Missions, April 1926.
3 MOSLEM MENTALITY | deterioration of the Moslem East, but no E l
ligious factor. Our conception of religion ought to be changed. . . . Turkey is called up to create a new realm of conscience, free from false legends.’”?
It is indeed exceedingly significant to see such state- ments made by the Moslems themselves. How this new mentality has permeated different classes of the people may be seen from the statements made by Mahmoud_ Esad Bey, the Minister of Justice at Angora, in his document attached to the new Code of Civil Law when - it was presented to Ismet Pasha, the Prime Minister, _in February 1926. The document reads: = “The Republic of Turkey had no codified civil law.
Medjelleh, which was codified about fifty years ago, has one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one articles, but only three hundred of these are applicable to our present needs. . ... The basis and the source of Medjelleh was religion, whereas the life. of men is always subject to fundamental movements. States which have had laws based on religion have been unable after a little to satisfy the requirements of their country and people, because religions express unchangeable judgments. But life is fluid, and needs change constantly ; conse- quently the laws based on religion can have no real value or meaning, but become a mere form of dead words; unchangeableness is a necessity of religion. Therefore to keep religion simply as a matter of con- science has been one of the principles of modern civili-
z Cf. Ijtihad, February 1, 1926. Quoted in my article in The Moslem World Quarterly, July 1926.
MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION SL Je S
as differentiating it from the old. Laws ba téligion fetter their societies to primitive stages of ` life, and become the chief obstacles to progress. ... ` The first characteristic of modern civilization is to Separate religion and life; any other course would be to enslave the conscience of those people who do not accept the religious principles of the State. This cannot be allowed in any modern State. Religion must remain ‘In the sphere of consciences only ; it must not enter into that of the laws. On the day that this document of the New Civil Law is promulgated, the Turkish nation will be saved from the false beliefs and traditions which have encumbered our nation during the past thirteen centuries. It will close the doors of the old civilization, and our country will enter into the contemporary civilization of life and progress.” 1 Just a little while ago we referred to the fact that Islam was possessed of three aspects: First, doctrinal; Second, civic and judicial; and third, moral. The present Moslem thinkers confine Islam’s authority only to the first of these, separating it from the last two completely. However, the movement does not seem to stop there. There are tendencies which show clearly that Islam’s hold on the doctrinal beliefs of Moslems is also being questioned, and a new type of rationalism is rising up among them. Some inquiries were carried on by one of the Turkish periodicals with regard to the religious beliefs of the present youth in Turkey. The result of these inquiries is very significant. The first inquiry was on general topics, and there were * Reported also in the daily paper Khalk, February 18, 1926.
and disorder. Old traditions have been shaken, and
“What is the most valuable thing for you in ife? Are you willing to die for your religion? Do you love it that much? Whom do you want to follow in your ~ life? Who is your example? Who is the greatest man in your opinion? Who is your hero?” }
Hundreds of replies have come to these questions, and the results are summarized by the. editor as follows:
“We have read these : answers, and we conclude that the mind of our youth is in a condition of disturbance
r ióhs were like the following :* =
new ones have not yet taken their place. The Turkish youth is restless between the old and the new... . They are not aware of what they need, or what they want. There is not any dominating common ideal in the minds of our youth. Many have spoken of © health and honour as the most important things, but out of five hundred answers only fifteen have spoken of these things as the most valuable. . . . How- ever, we are in a state of metamorphosis and transition, and the Turkish youth are not to blame for this un- certainty. Sixty per cent. only were willing to die for their religion, as the answers show. Twenty per cent. say that it is useless and improper to ask such questions of modern youth. The greatest men in their view are primarily those who have been famous in military, and political activities, such as Mustafa Kemal, Lenin, or Bismarck, or such inventors as Edison and Marconi,
* See Resmli Ay, March 1, 1997.
en
OSLEM ATTITUDE-TO RELIGION
e next. Forty per cent. take religion and L meas the most valuable thing. Forty per cent, take ‘` personal honour, and ten per cent. take nationality, | and five per cent. their country as the most valuable ANINE iea ai | The second Questionnaire related more particularly
to the Islamic faith. Such questions as these were ` asked:
“Do you believe in the existence of God and the next life? Do you believe Mohammed is the true Prophet of God? Is the Koran an inspired book? Do you believe in prayer and fasting? Do you believe in angels and spiritual beings?” )
About three hundred young men have sent replies to these questions. The results have shown that out of
_ these three hundred, forty did not believe in any of
_ these things; they believed neither in God, the Prophet, nor the Koran nor the next life. One hundred believed in God, but said definitely not in God as taught by Hojas; these did not seem to believe in the Prophet or the life after death. Some take Mohammed merely _ dS a genius, a great man of his age. They don’t believe in the necessity of religion for society. The remaining two hundred and ten mostly believe in these things. The editor concludes by saying:
Our inquiry shows that our pupils in the schools, and young people in general, are in a state of uncer- tainty with regard to their religious beliefs. The majority are religious, but they have serious doubts and questions 1n their minds.”
There was a third inquiry, a Questionnaire, addressed
et
mn, «beliefs, and especially about immortality. The ques-
tion was frankly put before them whether they believed © in life after death. The result of this inquiry showed that most of the leading thinkers at the present time | do not believe in any idea of life after death at all. It is to their credit to note that they have expressed their views quite frankly on the question. They do not
hide their opinions. One leading Professor of the í University of Stamboul, an historian and nationalist, `
Keuprule Zade Mohammed Fouad Bey, says; “I have - nọ knowledge about such matters. It belongs to the __metaphysicians.’’ Another man, Reshad Nouri Bey,
says: “To believe in such a life after death is a happy _ thing for a person, but I have lost that happiness long `
ago.” Selim Surry Bey, the man who has done the greatest service in stimulating athletics in Moslem
schools, says: “I am not so simple-minded as to believe
that there is another world after death; that my actions in this life will be weighed in another life; and that if my good works outweigh my bad works, I shall be recompensed by going to paradise and there living with nice damsels; otherwise I shall be cast into the hell fire. Some people may call me an infidel, but that does not matter. In my opinion, the next life is the judgment passed upon our deeds by our fellow- men.” The editor of the magazine concludes: “It is evident that there is a shaking in the convictions and faith of our men. A new conviction and a new faith must take the place of the old.”
In a daily magazine there was a picture of a mosque
MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION
with two minarets, with this inscription on it: “Moder _, fidelity (Kufr) is to deny faith in society.” Under the | picture there was also this significant statement: “Every age has a creed of faith, and those who do not believe it are called Infidel (Kiafir) by that age. For example, during the past ages society was based On religion; to believe in the unity of God and the Prophetship of a certain Prophet were considered as essential conditions of membership in that society. Those who denied it were called Kiafir, Infidel, and their blood was ‘free’; they were ‘outlaw.’ This was based on a definite religious creed. This is all changed _ how. The foundation-stone of the modern social life -is not that; it is faith in society. In place of the religious ` Creed and the word of testimony such as ‘I believe, l testify, etc., to-day the sociological creed has been adopted. This is based on the idea of the development of human society on certain principles. Those who do not believe this, and deny the existence and the -Superiority of society, are modern Infidels.” 1 _ Here are some astonishing statements with regard to the Festival of Sacrifices, the greatest and the most sacred of all the Moslem festivals when devout Moslems from all parts of the world come to Mecca to celebrate t with great formalities :
£ ° 9 e. °% e ‘Every religion has some traditions which are con-
sidered sacred. Those traditions are sometimes in- herited from the past, but mostly taken from other religions and appropriated during the course of time. But religion is not a fixed and unchangeable thing; it
t Khalk, March 22, 1926. I
MOSLEM MENTALITY
reed. A fixed and unchangeable religion is destined to die. To-day all religions have changed their forms of a thousand years ago, and have taken new forms according to the time and need. 4 “The tradition of killing sacrifices also is a tras dition which has passed to us from other religions. Primitive men have felt the need of offering gifts and sacrifices to gods in order to appease their anger. At _ times of great danger men have promised sacrifices tol their deities, and then they have expressed their grati- tude by sacrificing animals or men. We find this cúüstom among the Egyptians, Phænicians, and otherf ancient and primitive peoples. Later religions pro- hibited the offering of men as barbarity, and have} _ kept only to animal sacrifices. . _ “This custom of killing sacrifices at our Festival also has come to us from those earliest stages of primi- 1 tive men, and has been perpetuated till the present | time. But to-day we are not in such a low condition as | to express our fear or gratitude by offering an animal. This might be a very proper way for the primitive peoples. A civilized man does not need to resort to such means to express his feelings. As all traditions change in time, so it is time that this tradition also should change. Ten centuries ago men prohibited the © sacrifice of men as barbarity; in the same manner men -have developed to-day enough to consider such a custom as Offering animals as a useless thing also. Our mentalities have changed. We cannot remain bound to the old traditions blindly. Everything is ©
MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION 1;
ging in our time; our ideas also are changing: “the old traditions are giving their place to new ones.
“Until yesterday the forms of our communal con- science were expressed by the religious institutions; to-day the centre and focus of the social conscience is social institutions. The communal emotions have changed, their centre. Our emotions to-day are all Springing from the national sentiment.’’!
The writer concludes by approving Mustafa Kemal’s suggestion not to kill animals at this feast, but give the money to the National Aeroplane Association to buy more aeroplanes. |
There was a caricature in the comic paper Karaguez- of a modern Hoja preaching in the mosque to the people, and these were the words put into his mouth:
“My brethren. Our worship is very simple. You all know already how to worship Allah. Therefore I shall | not speak to you about that now. I shall speak about this world rather than the next, because we ought to know this world well in order to be able to live in it. This world is the world of money, power, and civiliza-
tion. If a nation has not got these three things, she cannot live in this world. Go and secure these things first, and then offer your prayers to Allah.?”2
These show clearly the modern attitude among the Moslems toward Islam. In considering these new de- velopments in Moslem thought, we must not think that this modern tendency is against Islam merely ; it
* See the Editorial, Resmli Ay, August 1927. * See Karaguez, March 9, 1927.
every day is that civilization has nothing to do with religion; in fact, progress has been made in the West in spite of the Christian religion. The Christian Church has always opposed progress in the name of religion, and the reformers have fought against them in order to open the way for civilization and progress. The Moslems cite the example of the French Revolu- tion, and point to the struggle in France against the Church and religion. They object strongly to calling Western ci.ilization Christian civilization, and bring the example of Japan as a country which has refused “to accept Christianity, yet has risen to a high rank ~ among the civilized nations.
On the sociological side, Durkheim’s thëories seem to have influenced Moslem thought very much. His book on Primitive Forms of Religion has been translated into Turkish and widely read by students. In the Quarterly Bulletin issued by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Stamboul, long articles have been devoted to the translation and exposition of Durkheim’s theories. There have been wide translations from Fraser’s books also. A few writers have definitely stated that religion is essentially a social product; that ‘religion is a thing produced by the social conditions and environment of people, therefore it is valid only for its time and environment, and ought to be changed according to the social developments of another age. Surely there is much truth in this, but it denies any . errant value in religion. Religion becomes almost
like one’s clothing. To-day you may wear salvar
i
|
- MOSLEM MENTALITY 4 nst all religion. The idea which is getting strqngér )
OO
‘
yyrow a pair of trousers. To-day a fez, to-motrdvi
european hat. So with religious ideas also. Religious truth has no permanent value. It will be defined simply as what is suitable to our needs at the moment. To- morrow our needs may change, and our ideas of religion also will change. It is for this reason that in the mind of the Moslem thinkers religion is either left out altogether, or is taken as an unhappy necessity. Souad Hanum, a Turkish lady writer, recently in her story published in the weekly magazine, Serveti Finoun, makes the hero of the story say these words about religion: | ` “Religion is as harmful as opium drunkenness. Prayer is the hope of men who are weak, without will-power to do anything; worship is an insincere egoism to save one’s self from the tortures of hell ; prophets are the greatest liars among men.”
RHE MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO pes
The relation to Christianity of this anti-religious
tendency among some Moslems is a problem which has caused a good deal of discussion in Christian circles. Some interpret this as a sign of a friendly approach to Christianity by the Moslems; others believe that the Moslems ‘are as fanatical as before. Although it is difficult to express an opinion on this
question, we can say that it will be a mistake to inter- 7 pret these new tendencies among the Moslems as a positive appreciation of the Christian religion and a
distant tendency toward accepting Christianity in place of Islam. The first influence of such new intel- lectual and social awakenings is usually destructive.
* Quoted also in Karaguez, July 20, 1927.
+"
MOSLEM MENTALITY
lestroys all traditions and beliefs. Whether it id to better and higher ideas constructively is very difficult to say. Experience shows both ways. The Jewish contacts with the Greek life during the early
centuries of Christianity may be a good example of.
this. The Greek thought stimulated the Jew’s mind, but it resulted only in making his mind keener for metaphysical inquiry. It did not produce a spiritual change to incline him to accept Christianity or to -reform his religion. -The Jew, whether enlightened or not, has remained a Jew and opposed Christianity. - Scientific awakening may lead men to Agnosticism
= and.Atheism, as well as to true religion. This is the
condition in Moslem countries now. The Moslems are clear in their aim to be Westernized thoroughly. They say this is the only way of salvation for their people; but they exclude Christianity. In fact, the
“greatest protagonists for Western culture among Moslems are the severest opponents of Christianity. in the book on Europeanization, by Ibrahim Hilmi Bey, the auther quotes the definition of Westernization
given by Ahmed Djevdet Bey, the editor of one of the ©
oldest dailies at Constantinople, as follows:
“By Westernization we mean to transfer the economic and the social life of the West to the East; to fill the East with the science and ‘the arts and the industries of the West; to establish universities, factories, dock- yards, theatres, public parks, and observatories; in one word, it is to be awakened from the sleep of ignor- ance and laziness, and to make progress in the scientific and industrial fields.”
OO ee ms
ren he adds these words with regar hristianity : ae ie "To be Europeanized does not mean to be inclined to Christianity, Modern Europe has inherited its civilization from ancient Greece and Rome. To call modern civilization Christian civilization is quite
a MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO IGENT:
.
wrong. Very little has been the influence of Christianity _
upon the present civilization of the West. European civilization is not Christian civilization (that is, it is not a civilization produced by Christianity). It is a conglomerate of the old European and “Greek and Roman and Arab civilizations, and has taken its present form from the activities of the enlightened minds in Europe. Thus its technical part is quite applicable to all countries: in fact, this civilization has been produced about fifteen centuries after the introduction of Christianity into Europe. It has been _ obliged to fight against Christianity and the Christian Church and the clergy, and only by overpowering their resistance has it established itself in Europe.” This same idea has been expressed in many books and articles in these last years, The. modernist Moslem programme is quite clear. Their aim is to be Western- ized. ‘They. will refute the domination of Islam in scientific and social, judicial and civic matters. They will refute Christianity as well. They will take only the technical side of Western civilization, and thus organize a civilized and strong nation, and will hold an honour- able position among the great Powers of the world. The United States of America has been the ideal of many Turks, American life has been praised much in
MOSLEM MENTALITY ` Gig
lem papers and books. Encouraged by thisy : time ago I translated an address delivered by President Coolidge on October 20, 1925, at a Conference at Washington, and sent it to a Turkish magazine. President Coolidge stated very definitely that religion was necessary for the best development of national life, and therefore it was necessary for American life. He
_ even said that,without the co-operation of religion, all legal, civic, and educational systems and laws would remain futile; so he called the members of the Confer-
_ €nce to make stronger efforts to strengthen the religious life ofthe people with the view of purifying their char- acter. This article was published, but it aroused much Opposition and strong protests by many Moslems. It did not agree with their viewpoint. It wasn’t a word spoken by a clergyman, but by the President of the American, Republic; yet it was not acceptable to them, with all their admiration for America. There is a strong reaction against religion and all religious
organizations: this is clear.
From some coruers of the East we hear that there is a differentiation in the minds of the people with regard to Christianity and Christ; that they reject Christianity, but show an openness to understand Jesus Christ. The position taken by modern Moslems with regard to Jesus Christ is not like that. That differentiation between Christianity and Christ does
, 0t exist in the Moslem mind. I heard once a Turkish Prince expressing the idea that Jesus Christ and His ethics was the best of all religions. There have been individuals who have shown an appreciation of Jesus
\SHE\MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION GI,
6 cts; but the i erien in Islamic thought have the same attitude toward Jesus Christ as toward Christianity, One writ®r in a daily paper recently spoke thus about Jesus Christ:
“The whole knowledge of Jesus cout the world of His time consisted only in the gay society of the fishers on the lake of Tiberius, Jerusalem, the majesty of the Temple of Solomon, where the ritualistic religion was administered by its Jewish priesthood, and a little knowledge of Mosaic law and Rabbinic textbooks.
“The contrast between the conditions of the poor fishermen of Galilee, who did not need to think of
_ to-morrow, and the rich and luxurious priests who officiated in the pomp of Jerusalem, viewed from His life as a carpenter, made this society appear to Him a society of hypocrites and rebels, and it was this attitude and consciousness that made Him to complaifi in self- pity, “The foxes have holes, but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His head.’ ee
“He was pointing continuously to His disciples, ‘Do you not see that no one by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? Don’t you consider the splendour of the lilies of the field that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them? The eating and drinking and raiment of life is not worth being anxious about. So society in the mind of Jesus-was more imaginary than Plato’s imaginary Republic. And He named His society ‘The Kingdom of God.’ The mem- bers of such a society could be only those who would be ready to leave their families, children, and parents,
EM MOSLEM MENTALITY 5 ‘a Gee spisé/ money, and submit their lives to the cen E
@ blind fate; in a word, those who would deny the principles of eee civilization. Naturally the only business of the society would be resignation from the world in holy fear, and to do the will of God (as Dervishes). Consequently, for these people neither laws nor penal code’ could be a matter of considera- tion. Here everyone is the child of God with equal love and compassion, and in this Kingdom there is no place for culpability.
‘To-day, especially in the theological seminaries of England, the inquiry of Christianity is carried on in the field ‘of psychological study, without taking into con- sideration the principles of social life. In Christianity, ~ thatis, in the teaching of Jesus, the non-existence of laws and regulations which govern society is supposed by these Professors to be the fundamental virtue and superiority of Christianity. They believe that in this way Christianity has the capability of adjusting itself to all forms of modern progress and intellectual development. The most convincing answer to such arguments would be to point to the great difference between the world of Jesus and the principles of modern civilization; and also to the fact that all _ the words of Jesus which can truly be ascribed to Jesus in the whole New Testament do not exceed three chapters, approximately a hundred and eleven verses. ~ “The teaching of Jesus, on the one hand, has not taid down any law or regulations; while on the other hand, it has left a large field for all kinds’ of fanatical and
:\MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION qr
fle interpretations. In these teachings ‘can
stécted a contention between God and Satan, like the eternal contentions of Ahriman and Ahura Mazda of Persia. Satan was victorious while Jesus was living; nevertheless the ‘Son of Man’ shall send His angels to gather all the wicked and cast them into the furnace of fire (Matt. xiii. 49). The Inquisition took its origin from Christianity, and developed with it. The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to Timothy states this same thesis of ours, ‘Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having thrust from them made shipwreck con- cerning the faith ; of whom is Hymenzusand Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan that they might 2 taught not to blaspheme ° (r Tim. i. 19, 20).
“During the early days of Christianity, the punish- ment of those who surrendered themselves to Satan, that is, those who denied Christianity, was simply their rejection from the society. This was a mild appliance of the Mosaic Law. In the Mosaic Law for-similar | cases stoning was the inevitable treatment.
“The Church, during her first three centuries, was tolerant toward her enemies. The first Fathers, Origen and Lactantius, rejected oppression and tyranny. Con- stantine I, who accepted Christianity as the official religion of the State with the edict of Milan in 813 A.D., opened an era.of tolerance. But beginning with Valentine I and Theodosius I (379-395 A.D.), things changed, and severe laws were issued for those — who would surrender themselves to Satan, and such laws and orders grew severer and intenser.
“A fair idea can be gathered from the fact that
Ta MOSLEM MENTALITY Chri ng a period of fifty-two years, sixty-eight diffe E
laws were promulgated with regard to the treatment of those who denied Christianity.” ! I believe this shows the attitude of most Moslem thinkers toward Christ at the present time. Indeed, they take all prophets as idiots, and Jesus as one among them; they care for none of them. The prophets were Sane folk; they can bardy have any place in modern life!
Summarizing the attitude of the modern Moslems to religion, we can say that the modern Moslem is a positivist in his views. He worships science, and hopes for Salvation through science and knowledge. He
' appreciates the ancient Greek culture as the basis and ~ mother of modern civilization. He wants to go back to Aristotle and Plato, but not to Moses of Sinai; or to Mohammed of Arabia, to Edison and Marconi, but not to Jesus of Nazareth. He wants to persuade people that the true line of development for Europe and Asia and for all mankind is to ignore the unfortunate and harm- ful incursion of religion under different forms, such as Judaism, aat. or Islam, and he wants to lead people back to the old Athenian and Roman civilization and to begin from there. The third article of the new Constitution adopted by the National Party at their Congress held in Angora, October 22, 1927, reads as follows: “Our party separates religious and credal beliefs from politics, and holds as one of the most fundamental principles to base all the political,
* See Khalk, March 6, 1926. Quoted also in the report of the present writer, The Moslem World Quarterly, April 1927.
ons on the positive and experimental sciences of modern civilization.” (See Jgdan, October 23, 1927.) At bottom there is a materialistic interpretation of human life, and a quite false understanding of religion. They are in revolt against Islam, because Islam is Arabian. They are in revolt against. Christianity, because they judge it by the traditional formulas of _ the Christian creeds, and by the narrow-mindedness shown by the Church and the ecclesiastical leaders. They are in revolt against all religion, because they think religion and science, faith and knowledge, cannot agree; they are essentially opposed to one another. They think that all religions are revelations from on high, and are based on unscientific facts. Therefore religious creeds, teachings, and books are unreliable. Religion is for primitive-minded people. Knowledge
is the important thing, and it must be independent of
religious faith. The interests of science must be safe- guarded, and religion must be limited to the mosques and to old people. One of the Professors of the Stamboul University expressed the idea in a paper that religion was essentially emotionai—love to’God or anything else. He thought religion was for the satisfaction of our instinct of love. Love anything you like, and that will satisfy you. ) The foregoing studies have made two points clear with regard to the Moslem mentality: First,.significant changes have occurred in recent times in Moslem life, changes which are of a character to revolutionize Moslem thought all over the world. Moslems have
S HE MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION GI, jal and economic laws and organizations of UR
m~
A TRNA MOSLEM MENTALITY pai a weet to be awakened out of a long slumber, L,
«have begun to shake off the old fetters which have kept their mind in slavery for many ages: They are breaking connections with past traditions; that is the first significant fact. They have begun to see and to new standards of judgment. Their TEO outlook has begun to change. The changes in these Moslem lands are not merely political, such as the forms of their Governments and their new code of laws. The changes
_ are much deeper than these outward things, so much so that there may be reactions in the political Govern- ments (and very probably there will be), but the
_ Moslem peoples will never be the same. The change is
in their mentality. They have begun to move, and
cannot go back to the old. They have begun to see, and cannot be satisfied with the old. It is mere cynicism to ignore the importance of these changes and to belittle their significance. That is the first point to remember. ~ But there is a second point which is also very im- portant for a right understanding of the meaning of these changes, and that is the terrible degenerate background of Moslem moral life in the past. To be balanced in our judgment on the modern changes in Moslem lands, and to understand correctly the Moslem mentality at the present time, its issues and problems, we ought to take into account this morally poor back- ground of the Moslem life.: The Moslem standards of life have been very low. "The Moslem mind has thought: “and seen and acted on lines which are to a great
z o 5
au, MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION NE e
>to understana these changes rightly and work intelligently. It was a common saying in the Turkish Empire that one could get things done only by oneg
of three things: political pressure, graft, or women
Only one of these three would appeal to the ee mind, and the strongest was the third. There is a Turkisk saying: “A fish stinks from the head.” The head of the Moslem life was the palace of the Sultans. There was the seat of the Caliph, the Vicegerent of Allah, the Commander of the Faithful, and of all Believers ; and what terrible places those palaces were ! Really, the things written by the Moslems themselves recently about the inner life of the palaces, and. the private lives of the Sultan Caliphs, have shocked even the Moslems themselves. These immoral facts have had no little to do with making Islam and its Caliphs, | and ultimately all religion, a ridiculous thing in the eyes of the Moslem youth. They contain such terrible _ descriptions of the immorality and sensuality of the palace life! If the head is so, what is the body? An. American social worker among Moslem boys once told me that the Moslem boys ought to be given more information about the sexual life. I said they already ~ knew too much, and had experienced too much; they ought to know less. Their books, their textbooks, their holy books, are full of it. Sensual life is central in
Aslam. The Moslem home atmosphere is full of it. I~
remember once the Moslem mother next door to our house heard her little boy (only six or seven years of age) swearing terribly and cursing the girls and boys. —
= MOSLEM MENTALITY G Mother being proud of this, turned to the f L Ha said: “See how nicely he swears!” The Turkish
language is famous for the immoral meanings it attaches to the words; so it is with Arabic too. The Moslem life is degenerate desperately. Vices had entered the palace, the Government offices, schools, mosques, families, clubs, and everywhere. From top to bottom it was corrupted. It is a terrible thing for a child to be born in a Moslem family and to grow up with a Moslem background. We ought to realize this fully for two reasons. First, it will save us from a super- ficial appreciation of the modern changes in Moslem lands, as if the whole Moslem life has been changed _conipletely. Mentalities which are the inheritance of Many génerations do not change so easily. Laws may be changed ‘by a stroke of the pen, but habits persist terribly. The inherited impulses and modes of thinking cannot be transformed by bright resolutions. It is no wonder that whereas there is full liberty for literary activity in Turkey, the Turkish literature to-day “exhibits a desert. In the poems you feel the inner groanings of a sick soul. They are pessimistic and are diseased with a sickly spirit. Our novelists are depict- ing the dirtiest aspect of life. Our stage is busy with adapting the plays of adultery of the French theatre. Our dailies and periodicals are circulating-articles on all sorts of immoral topics with ‘great exaggerations, We are giving lessons of immorality to our people.” Second, it will make us more intelligent in our work, for the Moslems. New laws cannot solve the problem. * Turk Ingilabi, R. Sidqi Bey, 1927, p: 185.
4 i
MOSLEM ATTITUDE TO RELIGION
z owledge will not cure the disease. Science a potent to bring about a transformation; to change hatred into love, hardness into compassion,
sensuality into purity, falsehood into truth, something deeper and stronger is needed. That is the vital
problem with the Moslem peoples.
SL
MOSLEMS IN CONTACT WITH ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS
CHAPTER V
IsLAM arose in Arabia, and soon extended itself to the North, East, and West, and the lands of the Near East came under its sway. The strongholds of Christ- ianity, Damascus, and Jerusalem, were soon conquered ‘by the Moslem armies, and from that time on Islam and Christianity have been in close contact in these “countries, each influencing the other. Our subject in. this chapter is the influence of Oriental Christianity on Islam. | It is becoming more and more realized by students of Islam that the influence of Christianity on Islamic thought was very great in the early centuries. ‘The his- torical and linguistic investigations as to the origin of Islam show clearly that in this period Christianity influenced Islam to a great extent, and guided Mohammed in moulding his religious beliefs and his ideas for the future of the Islamic community. A generation ago the general assumption of scholarship was that in all questions of the origin of Islamic thought and institutions, it was Judaism that counted most; more recent scholarship, however, has been indicating that the influence of Christianity has not been less, and perhaps greater. Investigations along the line of philology show that a good many words mentioned
üleiman, are obviously taken from the Christian forms of these names rather than the Hebrew; and numerous words in the vocabulary of the Koran, such as Furqam, Yuhennan, Melek, Malakut, are now recognized as coming into the Arabic from the Syriac and Ethiopic Christian sources. Again, the legend material of the Koran is Christian rather than Jewish, and the formal elements of the cult, though ultimately Jewish, have rather the Christian tinge. Even the words Koran, Rahman, Salawat, are of Christian origin. After the death of Mohammed, Jewish, Greek, Persian, and other Oriental ideas were transferred to Islam by the apostate Christians. These Islamized
Christians, far superior to the Arabs, influenced Moslem
thought and life in many ways. The Moslem ideal was thus dictated by the superior culture of Christianity, in the development of its ritual, political eon mys- ticism, and dogmatic theology. I
I believe what is true for the religion of Islam in the early ages is true in later centuries also, with reference to the influence of Christian life upon Moslems. Since
the Turkish invasion of the lands of the Near East
during the last five or six centuries, Moslems have been in close contact with Christians, and the influence of the Christian life upon Moslems has not been slight. The Moslems have lived together with the Christians, shared their daily life in business and industry, and
* See The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment, R. Bell, 1925. Refer also to International Review of Missions, July 1927, p. 450. Professor Jeffrey’s statements.
~
E MOSLEM MENTALITY QI 148 affected Islam in many ways. To consider
4aive been the chief lines and the results of this contact "is the problem before us in this chapter.
Christian influence has been felt in social customs, in general culture, and in the ordinary habits and modes of life. Take for example family life and the condition of women in Islam and Christianity. The building of the Moslem house is typical in showing the Moslem idea of family life. There is the department of the harem in every good Moslem house, and this is separated from the outer court by high walls and heavy, gates. Moslem women are kept secluded in that department, without any contact with the out-
_ side world. In the wall separating the harem from the outer court there is a cupboard rolling on an. axis like a door, and the men-servants only bring the provisions from the market and put them in this cupboard, turn it round, and let it go. The women-servants take these provisions and talk to men-servants from the other side of this cupboard. This is the Moslem elevator, so to speak, The husband welcomes visiting friends and his servants in the outer court by himself. The women can never show themselves to the visitors. There are strict rules in the Moslem Jaw with regard to putting windows in one’s house. No Moslem harem department Ought to be seen from the windows of the neighbour’s house. Even the cousins are regarded as namahram (prohibited) in Moslem law, so there can be no family gatherings in the Moslem society. Menfolk usually meet in the cafés. Now in contrast with this seclusion of women in
fOSLEMS AND ORIENTAL CHRISTIAN
slém houses, imagine the Christian men and w ng in open houses, welcoming their friends to their homes freely, the husband and the wife and the children taking part in the conversation and the general gather- ings in the long evenings of the winter season, Imagine the feelings of the Moslem women, walking in the streets, wrapped from head to feet in a wrapper, seeing her neighbour the Christian woman walking in the ‘same street with open face, buying and selling in the market and talking with people freely. She would first criticize her—and the Moslems have done this very much. Then she would feel an inner aspiration for that same freedom, and ultimately take the courage to be like her. That is what has happened and is happening in the Near East at the present time. There is no doubt whatsoever that the example of the Christian women, their freedom in their homes and contacts with people, have had a great influence in bringing the new freedom to women in Moslem lands. A
There are many other small changes in social customs which have been due again to the contact and the direct influence of the Christians. The European mode of clothing and even shoes were first used by the Christians, In most towns all the tailors and shoemakers have been Christians. The Moslem was used to put on his big and rough sandals, whereas the Christian wore the beautiful and comfortable shoes in the European style. Now most of the Moslems have adopted the Christian shoes. The first watch in many places was introduced by the Christians; in fact, watches were a puzzle to many Moslems until recent times. A few years before the
i MOSLEM MENTALITY Cr 2 /when the Turkish Government adopted\th stern time, a Moslem Major came to a Christian
watch-seller and asked him to give him a watch which
would keep the European time. He had already a
watch, but he did not know that the same watch might
be used for the ala franca time as well as the Eastern!
Again, the use of knives and forks at meals has been
introduced by the Christians. The Moslems ate with
their fingers, using thin bread as a spoon. The use of handkerchiefs has been mainly a Christian habit.
Even to-day most Moslems do not carry a handker-
chief; they clean their noses out in the street or wipe
them with their sleeves! The European hat is also a
-Christian introduction which has been made obligatory
in Turkey now. The influence of the Christians in
_ teaching industrial and commercial methods has been very great. In public and private hygiene the Christian has been a model to the: Moslems. In most towns the
_ Moslem quarters are dirty and wretched, whereas the
Christian houses and streets are usually clean. There
is a striking difference between the death-rates of the
Christians and the Moslems in the same town. It _ was the Christians who appreciated scientific medicine
first in Moslem lands. It is only recently that the
Moslems have cared for the services of an educated
physician, and the young Moslems have begun to
study medicine in order to practise, among their people. In most towns in Asia Minor all the medical business has been in the hands of the Christians.
Take a more fundamental thing like Education. It is
a fact that the Christians were open to modern educa-
understood the value of modern edane T ago, and made earnest efforts and much sacrifice to promote it in their communities. Before the war, in a typical city of Asia Minor, with a population of 75,000, two- thirds being Moslem and one-third only Christians, there were hardly a few hundred Moslem children in all the Moslem schools; whereas in Christian schoois — there were over 3,000 children, In the Moslem Second- ary School in that town there were only sixty or seventy Moslem boys; whereas in the Christian Secondary School there were over. 600 boys. In this connection we must remember that the Moslem schools were all supported by.the Government, and all expenses were cared for by the Public Treasury; whereas in the Christian schools the parents were obliged to pay large sums for the education of their children. Yet the difference between the Christians and the Moslems with regard to education and literacy was immense. In that town a large percentage of the Christians could read and write; whereas 80 per cent. or more 'of the | Moslems were illiterate. The Moslems began to see the difference, and the present desire for education among them has been stimulated by the example of the Christians in the past. Even Christian widows have made great sacrifices for the education of their orphan children. This has stimulated the Moslems much. Thus the Moslem children to-day have, begun to attend the schools in larger number’, and there is an eager desire for eliminating illiteracy everywhere.
We might take other aspects of life to show the
ug Ze it with regard to religious and ea life. Whether this contact has helped the Moslems to change their ethical and religious views and to become better men and women is the serious question. For example, has the Christian contact changed the Moslem mentality with regard to the Moslem attitude toward others? _ Has the Christian contact influenced the Moslem to become more honest, just, and righteous in his dealings? These are important questions, and worth investigating. Let us admit at'the outset the fact that the Moslems have been in touch with the Christians these many centuries, but this has not brought about a fundamental change in the Moslem character and moral outlook. This is very sad to confess, but it is a fact. If the Moslem character and mentality had been changed by the Christian contacts during these ages, there would have been no terrible massacres and injustices such as we > tind in the history of these lands. The facts show clearly that their outlook with regard to ethical and religious problems has remained the same after so many cen- turies of close contact with the Christians. The Moslem’s standards of morality and his attitude toward others has not been transformed. He has not a higher moral life, and is not less bitter toward others than before. His dealings with weaker neighbours are as cruel and unjust.as ever. He hates his neighbours, and is un- reliable in his character. This is a fact. The reasons for this are manifold, of course, The racial characteristics of the Moslems, their religious teaching, their social
SLEMS AND ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS GI, thy”
kground, have had a great deal to do with
> hold of Islam upon the Moslems has been stronger than all the other good influences coming from the outside. All this is true; but at the same time we must question whether the sum-total of the influences of the Christians in the Near East upon the Moslems has been of such a type as to lead the Moslems to a change of mentality and character. We would mention two fundamental things in the attitude and mentality of the Near Eastern Christians which have operated to nullify their good influence upon Moslem neighbours in this respect. These are, first, Nationalistic feeling; and
second, the Materialistic interpretation of life. We believe that these have confirmed the Moslems in their worse attitudes rather than helped them to change to a better life and principles.
Let us take first the Nationalistic feelings.. Oriental Christianity is leavened with a very strong national feeling which dominates almost all religious activities. These old Oriental Churches are essentially national Churches, so that the Church and the national entities are as one and the same thing. To be outside the Church is to cease to be a genuine member of the
Nation. This consciousness of the unity of the Church and nationality is a thing inherited from the past, and is a result of the political experiences which have threatened the national life in the past ages. These old Christian communities have suffered terribly under foreign invasions, and have lost all their means of self- defence, except their Church, which has been the only institution to safeguard their existence and to direct
SAA. MOSLEM MENTALITY Shenin the great crises of their history. Really
*@hutrch has been the strongest bulwark in protecting the national life, customs, language, and traditions among the Oriental Christians. These peoples owe very much to their Churches in keeping them in the midst of these fiery ordeals of the past centuries. In fact, it is a wonder that any Christians have been left. in these lands of the Near East after so much of in- vasion and destruction, wars and massacres all through the past centuries. This persistence of the Oriental Christians is essentially due to the protection of their Churches. Therefore these Christian have stuck firmly
to their Churches, and they have even been willing to ‘lose their language under foreign oppression, yet not ~ sacrifice their Church relationships. Thus we may
_ imagine the sentiments of the Oriental -Christians toward their Churches as their national stronghold against the storms of the ages.
Besides, this unity of the Christian Church and nationality was recognized by the foreign rulers as a legal provision to simplify State affairs. Even as far. back as the time of Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, we see privileges Bente to the ` non-Moslems, recognizing them as separate “millets” according to their respective Churches. Sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, invited the
_ Armenian Bishop from Brousa, and gave him the title of Patriarch, as he had given it to the Greek. In 1863 a national constitution was granted to the Armenians, recognizing a semi-political function ofthe Patriarchate. The same has been true for the Greeks and other
ISLEMS AND ORIENTAL oe skids
3 istian communities also. These Oriental Chri ere called “millets”? by the Moslems—a term origin- ally signifying a religious sect or community, but lately meaning a semi-political body. Now it is used by the Turks simply to signify a nation in the political sense of the word. These millets had each a Head of an ecclesiastical high order, recognized officialiy by the Moslem ruler as Patriarch. These Heads ofthe Christian communities exercised a temporal power, in addition to their ecclesiastical functions. They were official
representatives of their communities before the Moslem
Overnment; so there was a Greek Orthodox millet — under the Ecumenical Patriarch, a Bulgarian Patri- arch under the Bulgarian Exarchate, an Armenian millet under the Armenian Patriarch, a Jewish millet under the Grand Rabbi, and even Roman Catholic and Protestant millets under separate Heads. This is enough to show how the spirit of a separate millet or nationality has grown and been prominent in these non-Moslem communities under the Moslem rule right from the beginning. These millets have each kept its
Own national language and literature, and each has celebrated the anniversaries of its own fiational heroes; its members have saluted each other according to their national customs and in their national language, and have sung their great national songs inflaming the © national spirit in the hearts of the young people. Thus the European’ spirit of nineteenth-eentury Nationalism found a ready field among these non- Moslem millets in Turkey, and each of these communi- tes has been quick to develop a strong nationalistic
MOSLEM MENTALITY
~ feling, hating the Moslem, and trying to get rid ‘soon as possible, of his rule and domination.
Now, if over against this millet spirit of the Christians we put the political nature of Islam recognizing all believers as the millet of Mohammed, and if we imagine this spirit on both sides set ablaze by the spirit of Western Nationalism, then we can understand some- thing of the real nature of the problems of the Near East between the Moslems and the Christians. Really in the Near East the conflict has not been between Christianity and Islam as pure religions, but between Moslems and Christians as antagonistic millets, the Moslems trying to rule and oppress the Christians, and the Christians trying: to defend themselves, and, if
~ possible, to throw the Moslem domination. This is the mentality underlying all the events of the last hundred years in the Near East. It has been a national- istic struggle with the mixture of religious fanaticism., There has not yet been started a purely spiritual _ campaign in these Moslem lands to influence Islam for good. The Islamic millet, excluding all others, has not yet met the Christian community embracing all in the spirit of true brotherhood. Semi-political Islam has never been confronted with a purely spiritual Christianity. The conflict has been that of one millet against another. This accounts in the main for the sad fact that Moslems have been in contact with Christ- lanity for so many centuries in these lands, yet have not been changed in their character and outlook. The Moslem mentality has remained the same essentially ` all through these ages. The reason was not that Christ-
| MOSLEMS AND ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS GI,
¿Was powerlessin its essence, but that the Moslènds Şe not seen that higher: type of life and character which is Christian, because it was overshadowed by the millet interest. | The second thing to be noted in this connection is the Materialistic interpretation of life and history prevalent in the East. Materialism tried to explain everything _by the theory of brute force. It is a very easy but superficial method of interpretation. The Moslems have always had this view of life. Islam is essentially a state based on and supported by force. I came across an Arabic motto hanging on the wall of what was once the Christian Church of St. Irene (Peace), and is now the War Museum at Constantinople, which shows the Moslem spirit clearly. It read: “Peace is under the shadow of the sword’; that is, whoever is stronger and has the sword in his hand enjoys peace against his enemies. It is crude force that decides ultimately in human relationships, and it is the mighty that rule. Ideas of right and justice, righteousness and goodness, have no place in human affairs. Virtues, like humility _ 4nd meckness, are the consolation of the weak. Every- thing is governed by selfish interests. That is the Moslem interpretation of life. A very good illustration of this Moslem mentality is found in the book of the Indian Moslem Iqbal, which shows this spirit very Clearly. Sheikh Iqbal has written his book in the form of stories, but they are full of meaning. In one»place he tells the story of a bird that was faint with thirst. _ The bird sees a diamond in the garden, and fancying it a drop of water, pecks it with his beak, but is deceived.
bird oo away and sees a rose-twig and a dion of dew upon it. He swallows the dewdrop. The story ends with these words: ‘‘Art thou a drop of water or a
gem? ... Bea diamond, not a dewdrop.”
In other place hetells the story of a tiger which ‘was strong and’ devoured the sheep. An intelligent sheep comes to him with a prophetic teaching, and says: “O thou that delightest in the slaughter of sheep, slay thyself, and thou wilt have honour! Life is rendered unstable by vidlence, oppression, and revenge; though trodden under foot, the grass grows up time after time: forget thyself, if thou art wise!’ The tiger
-~ swallows stupidly the charm of the sheep, and embraces a sheep’s religion. His tigerized nature is broken, and he becomes a végetarian and degenerates. The story ends by saying: ‘The tiger lost his power of ruling; bodily strength diminished while spiritual fear increased; spiritual fear robbed him of courage, and produced poverty and low-mindedness; this was called Moral Culture!’ 2 This story is very significant in showing the writer’s philosophy of life. This was, and has been, the belief of the Moslems. But what about the belief of the Christians? We find the same interpretation among the Christians also.
The Christians also believe that it is the mighty who rule, that everything is ultimately decided by the
t See Sheikh Iqbal’s book, Mystery of Self, translated by Nicholson, . 100, 2 Ibid., pp. 48 f.
EMS AND ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS ¢
i-mterests of the mighty. It is very common (among the Christians an interpretation of European history by the number of the warships and quantity — of wealth of the European nations. And let me say this, that the Christian peoples of the Near East are not wholly to blame by any means for this mentality. They have suffered so much because of the self- interest of the European Powers. They have known by bitter experience that mere cries for mercy are not listened to; that beautiful promises have remained on ‘Scraps of paper unexecuted, because there was no force at the back of them. So they have naturally come to the conclusion that it is the law of the jungle that governs human affairs. That is the belief of the majority Of the Eastern Christians. Some devout individuals among them have resorted to apocalyptic views in interpreting these great calamities. They have waited for the Day of Yahweh, when the Lord shall appear from heaven, crush the nations, and vindicate the rights of the poor and the widow. There have been groups like the Zealots also who, with a prehistoric €nthusiasm, have taken arms to defend their rights against the oppressors, and have tried’ to turn the fuling race upside down by force in order to bring better days to their people. All these ways have been tried, and one can see the different shades of it in different forms everywhere in the Near East. But all these methods, at bottom, have been motived, and directed by a nationalistic and materialistic mentality, and consequently it is no wonder that the Moslem nationalistic and materialistic mentality has not been
MOSLEM MENTALITY
ome through contact with the Christians. Sem has remained as proud and as brutal as ever. The contact with the Christians has not transformed his outlook and character, rather it has confirmed him in his old ways. = There was another way which waits still to be iried: the way of good will and love. In order to overcome a lower concept there ought to be a higher one. Evil spirits cannot be cast out by Beelzebub. Evil can only be overcome by goodness, and brute force by love. To kill the bad men does not solve the problem. Evil ultimately must be overcome in the hearts of men, and that can only be done through spiritual means. Speaking for my own nation, I am ready to confess that our leaders have ignored these spiritual resources, and have mainly appealed to political means in’secking a settlement for our national problems. We have knocked too much at the doors of political powers, but have cared too little to appeal to the conscience of men. We have taken too much pains to prepare elaborate schemes for political solutions, but have neglected the way of peace and reconciliation with our neighbours. We have thought too much of meeting evil by force, and have not thought of the possibility of overcoming it by good. Our attitude has been defensive in fear and self-protection, rather than aggressive in the power of truth and love. Consequently we have not only been unable to overcome evil, but have ourselves beén overcome by it. Our poets and novelists have
used their fiery pens to set aflame the inner sentiments
of our youth, and have filled them with zeal and
d
i S a a a
sLEMS AND ORIENTAL CHRISTIANS
enthusiasm, but for narrow nationalistic ideals, rathér fan for spiritual conquests. We have tried to win victories, but not in the hearts of our enemies.
Still I believe our people have immense resources of spiritual power, adequate to transform the whole chaos of the Near East, even in this state of utter ruin and misery, into order and harmony. We need a move- ‘ment that should combine the indomitable faith of the apocalypts with the glowing enthusiasm of the Zealots, and should start a spiritual crusade to overcome evil by goodness, force by meekness, pride by humility, and hatred by love. This has not been tried in the past, and so the problem of the Near East remains un- solved. We are in the midst of the old difficulties again. The Moslem problem awaits still the right solution.
ae
SL
MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES IN MOSLEM LANDS
CHAPTER VI
Tue foreign missionary in Moslem lands has a very difficult task indeed. He comes from outside as an intruder into a delicate situation, and finds great diffi- culties in adjusting himself to the complex problems around him. If he pleases the Moslem, he is disliked bythe Christian; and if he pleases the Christian, he is suspected. by the Moslem; and he is always subject ` - to criticism by both the Moslem and the Christian. It is the hardest task of a missionary in the Near East to pursue a policy that is fair to all, yet not to com- promise and lose the vital elements of his task as a missionary. | | The Missionary Agencies have madé great contri- butions to the people in Moslem lands through their schools, hospitals, literature in the native tongues, and general example of their life. Hygiene, teaching with regard to microbes, care of the sick, scientific prevention of disease and control of epidemics, are things introduced into these lands through the activities of the missionaries. Until recently people went to the witch, the sorcerer, or the Dervish, for cure. There has been a universal belief in magic all over the Near East until our own times. I remember how one of our © Moslem neighbours whose child was sick with whooping-
T? MISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS SL : oÑ: ] t ok the child in cold weather to a cave outsi
, where people thought coughing was cured. The poor child died the next day. To-day such things are becoming more rare. Besides the direct medical service rendered by the missionaries to the people, the ideas of health and disease imparted by the missionary hospitals has served much in changing the people’s mentality with regard to these subjects—their cause and cure.
The service of the missionary agencies in education has been very great indeed. Schools, in the real sense ` of the word, have been started by the missionaries in these lands. The mission schools, with their excellent buildings and equipment, their up-to-date programme and able teachers, have been a model and a stimulus to all the peoples, in addition to their actual service in educating thousands of young men and women for their work in life. Mr. A. Chobanian, one of the leading Armenian writers, and an ardent nationalist, speaking about the service of the American missionaries, said recently :
“The American missionaries who came about a hundred years ago to Turkey and established colleges and other educational institutions, produced a healthy young generation with high democratic ideals. Most of our own higher educational institutions have devel- oped by imitating the American institutions” (amora ini Gotchnag, November 2, 1926).
Again, the literature produced by the missionary agencies with sound and good ideas has been of great Service in disseminating new thought. If the Protestant
again their work would have been quite enn while. Think of the value of studying the great English authors,
and their influence upon young people! What a great blessing it has been for the peoples of the Near East to have the Bible, that great book of religious literature, in their own language, translated and published by the missionary agencies. Besides these, the missionaries through their personal contacts, by the example of their family life and social customs, have introduced important changes.
But there are other things which are, perhaps, more important than the direct influence of the missionaries in the Near East. I want to mention four main ideas which the missionaries have introduced into the Eastern. mind. Some of these are, perhaps, still in the germ, but they are sown in the minds of the people, and are sure to grow and bear fruit.
The first is the Sense of Law. There are laws in the Near East, but there is no sense of law. Law as a thing to be observed and respected is foreign to the Oriental mind. Laws are considered in the Near East as arbi- trary regulations imposed by men in authority upon others. The corollary is that laws can be changed also arbitrarily by the will of the men in authority. In other words, the arbitrary will of the men in authority is the law, as the Eastern man understands law. Thus the man in authority is conceived as able to do whatever he likes; he is above the law. Thus one can escape the law by winning over the ruler. Law as a thing of
MISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS GL u
Zerent value—that is, as an expression of the fi
ntal principles of morality, and consequently as. a thing to be obeyed and respected by all—is quite unintelligible to the Eastern mind. That is one of the
chief reasons of so many abuses common to all the _ departments of life in these countries. A new and good law is promulgated, but the mentality of the people, _ €ven the mentality of the one who issues the law, is to escape it whenever his interest so requires. He respects it only from the fear of punishment. That is the general mentality in the Near East.
Now the missionary has come from the West with the Western sense of law, and perhaps unconsciously through his conduct has introduced a new sense of law into the Eastern mind. For example, the parent _ who brings his boy to the missionary school or college begins to learn something new as soon as he finds out that the tuition asked must be paid by all, equally, in due time. Solicitations to reduce it are simply of no use. The first instinct of the Eastern parent is to beg for ikram, and find a way for a special reduction. It has given quite a new idea to the people to know that iN missionary institutions, schools and hospitals, there ' Can be no bargain, no solicitations, no ikram. Rules must be obeyed by all, whoever they may be. The Students in the school also begin to learn this idea of law every day. The natural instinct of the Eastern boy is to do mischief, with a feeling that he can find a way of escaping the rules; in missionary institutions he begins to learn that he cannot get round the rules. In the classrooms the boys o§the rich and the poor are
“öne has done, not one’s family or wealth, and the rules are applied to all.
= Now these Eastern peoples in general are far from understanding this and applying it to their life; but
the development of this sense of law will be of great importance in the progress of these peoples in the future. The greatest curse of the official circles in Moslem lands is this lack of the sense of law on the part
of those in office. They have got the habit of treat-
ing men not as equal citizens on an equal basis, but
according to their wealth or position. If you are a man = of wealth or recognized position, you find a warm ` Welcome and get your request attended to. That
explains why the citizens of foreign States find such cordiality and usually prompt attendance in official circles. On the other hand, a poor native must come ‘and go many times until he is granted a hearing!
If there is to be any betterment in the internal ~ administration of these countries, this mentality must be changed, and a new sense of law must be created everywhere. The service of the missionary agencies will þe great and very valuable in this respect.
A second contribution of the missionary service in the Near East has been to create a sense of individuality and respect for the righis of others. People in a family live together, eat together, and share their properties in common. There is very little of the idea of individual rights and privacy. Everything belongs to the group and to all. Now the missionary has introduced quite a different idea, the idea of individuality and private
va MOSLEM MENTALITY GSI, teated in the same way. The standard is the |
ISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS Gg /The missionary’s mode of living in his hom
attitude to the members of his family, his mode of speech and general dealings with other friends, has - imparted this idea of individuality and private rights. This has given value to the individual as a person, ard has created a respect for personality. As a result, children have begun to be looked at as individuals with their own rights in the family or the school, and a new respect for women has developed. They, too, are persons, and have their private rights in the family and the group. Of course, the most conspicuous result
of this sense of individuality has been in the sphere of
_ political government. In the old social group the chief ruled the will of all; in the State, the Sultan; in the family, the husband. Now all this has begun to change, and there is a movement from Despotism to Democracy, from force to conviction, from domination to respect for the rights of others in all spheres of life,
A third contribution of the missionary activity has been the recognition of character as the supreme thing” in human life. By the supremacy of character I mean the supremacy of the moral element in man. In the East greatness is decided by wealth or birth. A Sheikh is great, because he is the son of a Sheikh; his character does not matter. So it has been with Sultans. Sultans are great, because they are the sons of Sultans, and are Im a position of authority; their character does not matter. Many a Moslem has been proud of his pedigree from the Prophetic family, although in-character he has been very low. Now the missionary activity has almost turned this idea upside down. Right from the
= MOSLEM MENTALITY GI, ining the missionary. has shown that charac ds highest with him. People have seen that a missionary is perfectly reliable in his word or promise. He keeps his engagements and is punctual. The Mission Treasurer’s cheques are regarded as perfectly safe in business circles. People take a missionary at his word. Now that has come as quite a new and startling thing to the people. In the East to make a promise, and even to state it in written form, and to execute it, are quite different things. You can never be sure that a promise will be executed in the time stated. You cannot rely on promises, and he who does not keep his promise does not feel it as a serious thing. With a few words of excuse he passes it by. Therefore in business _circlés people do not trust one another’s word. This lack of confidence and truthfulness is the most serious handicap in the whole life of the East. There can be no real progress unless this is changed altogether. Now the missionary movement has brought about a new idea in this respect. People have come to see that a ` man may have such a character that his words may be absolutely relied on. I heard of a Mr. Black, an English merchant in Aleppo, where swearing and telling lies are very common, who would never do either. People would trust his word so much that, in trying to assure one another with regard to their promises, they began to swear in Mr. Black’s name! The influence of such characters will be great in the East. It would not be an undue digression to speak a few words in this connection with regard to the Protestant
ISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS (Sy ement in the Near East. People have differe i judgment on the history and the origin of the Protestant movement, but it is fair to say that it has. been one of the finest products of the missionary activities in these lands. There were some unwise things and policies followed by both the missionaries and the native Protestants in the early days, and these things have caused much indignation, antagonism, and undue friction; but, nevertheless, the Protestants have introduced new blood and energy into the social, intellectual, and religious life of the people, and the emphasis they put on moral character and spiritual — life has been of great value. There was a time when the people took it as a maxim that a Protestant would not tell lies. There have been small groups of Protestants scattered all over the countries of the Near East who have been models of Christian character and moral integrity. In holding money on trust and keeping. accounts they have been considered much more reliable than others. The Moslems have realized this, and have cherished a great respect for the Protestants. I know of a young Armenian woman who was passing an examination for the diploma of midwifery at the Imperial University of Constantinople, and who, when she was asked to give her oath before the Assembly, refused, declaring that she was a Protestant. As soon as the President understood that this was the case, he accepted her word and excused her from taking the oath. È
The Protestant movement has served much in the past, but has greater possibilities before it in the Near
“MOSLEM MENTALITY oth for the Christian communities an
stems; on account of the simplicity of its teaching, emphasis on moral life, openness to truth, and other things which are of great importance to these peoples in their development. Protestantism has made religion a vital thing in the life of the people, and saved it from becoming merely a ceremony or a dry statement of a creed. It has made religion life, not mere theory. It has taught religion as a thing closely related to our daily life, and not merely other-worldly. It was the Protestants who first organized groups on democratic bases, and practised it in their social and religious life. It is the Protestants who have shown by their example of Church administration that however ordinary a man may be, he has a right to express ‘opinions for the benefit of the whole group, and thus they have been pioneers of democracy. Protestantism has made religion supreme over all other interests; just as the old Christian Churches were essentially national, the Protestant movement was religious. This
~ has opened the way to develop a new relationship between the different elements in the Near East, and especially between the Christians and the Moslems. Many Moslems have seen the possibility of Protestant- ism in bringing a change among the Moslems, and some even have talked of creating a Protestantism in Islam itself. What the results may be we cannot be sure, but this is certain, that the Protestant movement has an important and vital contribution to make to progress in the Near East, and its influence will be permanent among these peoples. |
movement to the cultivation of an international Spirit among these peoples. The missionary, with a broader international outlook, has served to a great extent to point out the way for a new international and interracial relationship among the peoples. People have begun to see that men and women belonging to different races, religions, and nationalities, can come together and live peacefully in the same com- munity. The missionary schools and hospitals have been a great example in this respect. These institutions have been the meeting-place where men of different nationalities learned to understand one another better, and to cultivate friendly relations. They have ~ been like oases where people come from all corners, forget their antagonisms, and find shelter and rest in brotherly conversation. Unfortunately, the missionary activities so far have been confined mostly to the Christian circles, yet the little that the missionaries have been able to do has shown a better way for right relationships, the way of good will and fellowship. With the new developments in the Near East, this aspect of the missionary service will be of great impor- tance in the future. Thus the missionaries have rendered reat services to the people in all these ways.
There are, however, a few things in missionary methods and policies which ought to be modified for more effective service in the future. One is the culti- vation of a more democratic spirit on the part of the missionary for closer co-operation in service with the native peoples, A missionary is usually very democratic
MOSLEM ‘MENTALITY Q ji; home country, as one sees in the West L “sémehow he develops an aristocratic tone in the mission field. Missionary candidates in their addresses made at the time of their departure to the mission fields strike such a fine note of democracy, such a fine spirit of humility and love toward the natives. But sad - to say, one misses that tone and spirit in the attitude _ of the missionaries as they come into the mission fields. Somehow, as soon as a missionary reaches the field, he begins almost unconsciously to feel differently; he finds himself a unique person, different from the others, and begins to develop a feeling of superiority. By and _ by he assumes the tone of a commander, rather than a. friend. This separates him from the people, and does great harm to his work. This has happened in various degrees in the career of many missionarjes. This temptation is so great that one may almost say that the missionary becomes so in spite of his will or desire. As the people come to him for help and direction, he _ begins to feel himself above others. The result is that ~ he serves and does good work, but is not respected. He preaches and gives good sermons, but is not listened to. He takes honours and ‘praises, but is not loved; and this neutralizes the main purpose of his service. Many missionaries have forfeited their usefulness through an awkward temperament. of unsociability and a spirit of non-co-operation.! ) _ 1 In our part of the mission field the association with the missionaries has been so harmonious, and the co-operation so complete, that it may be a model to many other fields. Whatever I say on this line I have seen
and learned from the magnanimous spirit of the missionaries who have put their service on this foundation right from the start.
ISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS Q DL
he awakening spirit of democracy all over
is character of the missionary activity must pa changed, and a new policy of co-operation and spirit of fellowship must be followed by the missionary agencies. I believe that this change must begin from the home base as well as the mission fields. Some years ago a recruiting secretary of one of the great missionary associations of Great Britain came to the college where I was and spoke to us with regard to the missionary work. The address was followed by a discussion, and there were a good many questions asked by the students. I caught the opportunity, and © wanted some more information with regard to their policy in the mission fields, their attitude toward the natives, and asked whether the natives had any voice in determining the use of the money sent to the mission fields. He abruptly replied: ‘What right have the natives got in the use of the money they have not given?” This secretary spoke in perfect honesty, and I believe in a good spirit; but that answer still rings in my ears, and I believe it shows one of the chief causes lessen- ing the effectiveness of the missionary activity in the mission fields. “What right have the natives got in determining the use of the money they have not given?” This principle contains two fallacies: first, it takes the money given for missionary purposes as American or British. The money given for missionary Service is not American or British, it is God’s money; the donors gave it in that spirit, and it must be used in that same spirit, if it is going to bring any spiritual results, Second, this policy puts the co-operation with
contributed by the natives-to the general funds, but must be directed by the spirit of Jesus Christ, who gave Himself freely for all and accepted them as co-workers. I am afraid the missionary service is becoming too business-like, and being dominated too much by the business spirit. If the’ missionaries wait till strong communities grow among the natives equal to the missionary in education and wealth, and then start co-operation, they will never get it. To make a person grow and a community develop, they must be trusted, and responsibility must be put upon them.
The higher must take the lower into his fellowship in order to uplift him; there is no other way for growth.
“Yet how few are such missionary institutions where the fhatives have a real part in the management, with full power of consultation and vote! As a policy some have separated the sphere of the activities of the natives, and apportioned a definite sum for their use and have ~ let them do whatever they liked with it. This may be one way, but it will not produce that ideal relationship between the missionary and the natives. It will not cul- tivate that beautiful spirit of fellowship and unity in service, ‘Ihe missionaries and the natives ought to sit together for consultation with full right of membership as co-workers in the same: task, and decide everything openly with free expression of opinion. In most places the mission personnel meet separately by themselves, decide matters, and dictate them to the natives. This has been a great mistake on the part of the missionaries.
ee ISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS GL Petherd is to be a new era of usefulness and effectiven
Yé missionary service, this whole policy must be revised from its basis. This is a thing which the mission- ary organizations and institutions ought not to neglect to take into serious consideration. This policy of ex- clusiveness or half-co-operation must be changed into’ one of fellowship and full co-operation. Then a new era will begin in the missionary service.
With regard to the educational work among the Eastern peoples, there are some important things which ought to be more carefully considered by the missionary educators. Speaking from my own experience in missionary institutions and my contact with the natives, I want to mention two fundamental things which will increase the efficiency of the mission schools in bringing better results.
First, the school programmes and method of teaching Ought to be such as to awaken in the minds of the Pupils the spirit of investigation and free inquiry in place of accepting things on second-hand instruction. ~The Power of observation in the Oriental mind ought to be trained much more, if there is to be any real gain in the educational system. This really touches the problem of authority which is so fundamental in all aspects of life. In the East people are used to think and act on the injunction of external authority. That is the reason why the Eastern people have been ruled by autocrats, even though sometimes the forms of S0vernment have changed externally, People are used to take orders and act accordingly. In political life, in the family circle, in religion, and in all aspects of
Wo: ~~. MOSLEM MENTALITY Ge : 4. Ahe Oriental is apt to act on the order of so M
dy else, instead of using his own mind and freedom of thought. Now this must be changed, and the people ought to learn to think for themselves on their own responsibility. Certainly the school is the best place to awaken and stimulate this spirit of independent thinking, and the missionary educational institutions have done great service on this line. But I believe there is Still much that can be done by revising methods of teaching, especially in higher education, in view of this special need of the Oriental mentality. Let us take, for example, the use of textbooks in the schools. In all the missionary institutions textbooks are used generally in class-work. There is a textbook and a teacher. The teacher assigns the lesson from this -book for the next lesson, and the pupil studies that section and comes to the class. But let us examine for a moment thé mental attitude of the pupil toward that textbook and the teacher as he studies those pages assigned. for the lesson. The pupil reads the book, ‘understands and learns what the book says, and accepts ~ it as absolute truth. I do not say that he merely -memorizes it like a parrot; no such superficial study is allowed in missionary schools; but the pupil never thinks that the author or the teacher may be questioned with regard to the statements made in the textbook. He simply reads it, learns it, and there he ends his mental activity. The book is the final authority for him on that subject. He never questions it; in fact, he never thinks of questioning it. Now this mental attitude runs through all the aspects of the life: of
ISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS GL People, and it ought to be changed. It is bec inthis submissive mentality that the Oriental does not invent new things; not that he is not capable of invention, but he does not think of inventing or discovering a new thing. He has not learned to take the trouble of going further and digging deeper; he does what he is told to do. Dr. Rendel Harris used to tell us often that he prayed every day in repeating the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Give us this day our daily discovery.” ft is no wonder that he discovered something new almost every day. Now that attitude of mind is quite foreign to the Oriental mind. Heis satisfied with second- hand knowledge. This is true also of the mentality of most of the Oriental teachers in mission schools. They i know their textbooks well, but they do not think inde- pendently of those books in studying their subject. They stop with their textbook, and if the textbook is - changed they are embarrassed. If there is to be any real progress among the Oriental peoples, this mentality is one of the most important things that ought to be changed. The pupil must know that he is an investi- Sator, however young in age he may be. He must have the consciousness that he has a right to test ideas and to express opinion with regard to what he finds in the book or what he hears from his teacher in the class. Fle must not be bound by the textbook and the teacher, abut he must learn to study independently of them. In order to achieve this result, the use of textbooks must be reduced, and the method of investigation ought to be introduced more widely into mission schoois. In this way the pupils perhaps will get a less amount of M
_. MOSLEM MENTALITY SI nation, but they will gain more for their fi
~tiféin acquiring the habit of investigation. By using a textbook a pupil may complete his study of geography soon, and may learn all sorts of things about the coun- tries of the world; but by the method of investigation, although he may learn less in quantity, he will acquire the ability to investigate for himself, and will develop the power of insight.and initiation which will be of greater value in his life. This making do with second- » hand knowledge is a thing which stultifies the life of the Oriental people in many respects and hinders progress. The Western writers and authors are almost infallible men in the eyes of the Oriental students. This is‘the reason why the Oriental is so quick in copy- ing wholesale European habits and modes of living -without investigating their truth and value. Let us teach the pupils as much as possible, in all grades of educational work, to think and to investigate for them- selves and act on their own responsibility. The second principle which ought to be regarded — more carefully in mission schools is to cultivate in the students an open-mindedness to truth, intellectual sincerity, an ability to co-ordinate the truth he learns in one department with the ideas in other departments, and to carry the truth to its logical conclusion in its relation to other aspects of life. All primitive people suffer from this inability to see the truth, to accept it, and to relate it to all their thinking. The power of old traditions and superstitions is so strong that the people will not see and accept anything else except what they. have known already. They are so bound to their old ideas
i
SL
‘new truth. There is much of this in the thought of the people of the Near East, and this mentality must be combated very strongly if there is to be real progress in their life. Education must be so conducted that the pupils may develop intellectual sincerity to see the truth and accept it with conviction, and relate it to their whole life. A profound love of truth is the glory of all intellectual education, and the Oriental needs. to cultivate that attitude. Then the Oriental thinks in compartments. He may see truth and accept it in one department, and yet not know how to relate | it to other départments of his knowledge. Without any feeling of confusion, he may take two contradictory things as true. He gives such an interpretation that those things do not seem to him contradictory at all. He believes that the Sultan does immoral things, yet he accepts him as Vice-gerent of God, and obeys his
‘command with honour. He admits that there are even grammatical and orthographical errors in the Koran, - yet asserts that the Koran is perfect in every way. He does and says these things almost unconsciously. He is not troubled by them. The-Oriental mind is terribly lacking in intellectual thoroughness and integrity. I wonder whether the mission schools try hard enough to cure this weakness, and whether the instruction in the schools is carried out in such a way that the pupils learn to see the truth in sincerity and carry it to its logical conclusions. Brain activity is a thing much neglected by the Oriental people. Your servant would do everything you say, but he would not use his brain
— my
) MOSLEM MENTALITY G co relate it to other things he may be doing. He L st fake the trouble to think things through. This is one of the chief reasons why the Oriental peoples do not develop enough intellectually and morally. One thing at a time is the principle of their thinking. They cannot see many things and the whole life at one time. This mentality must be changed. They must be en- couraged to use their reason and follow truth to its logical conclusion. This will mean a good deal of exercise of moral courage on their part, and is just the thing that they ought to have. The mission schools have a great opportunity to cure this primitiveness of the Oriental mind; by revising their programmes and . their methods of administration accordingly.
Some have criticized the missionaries for their policy and activities; others have sympathized with their aim, but have thought it a hopeless task; but many thoughtful persons have’felt the value of the mission- - ary service, and even have confessed that they owe to it the best and highest things they enjoy in life. The missionary has rendered great service*in showing the value of body, mind, and soul, and the importance of caring for them all. He has opened the eyes of the people to high ideals and aroused enthusiasm to reach these ideals. He has taught people what life is, and how to live it. So men and women have begun to move; that is the most characteristic sign of our times: Movement! There are many influences coming from the West, indicating many lines for development, but no one of those influences has the soundness of the ideals imported by the missionaries. The time has not yet
MISSIONARIES IN MOSLEM LANDS
pass a judgment on the whole mission
in Moslem lands. There was not enough scope a opportunity in the past, so the fringe of the prob- lem has only been touched yet. But it would be a great mistake to decrease the missionary activity, and to deprive the Near East of it would be a great calamity. With the new openness and freedom in these lands, there is a wider opportunity for greater service in the future, and it is time for the missionary agencies to consider carefully their task and adopt new aims and methods, mecting the new developments. This will be our subject in the following chapters.
SL
THE MISSIONARY PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE MOSLEMS
CHAPTER VII
THERE has been nearly a whole century of P.otestant missionary work in Moslem lands, but the results have not been encouraging in winning the Moslems to Christianity. The actual converts from Islam have been very few. Up to the present time, in spite of the notable activities of the missionaries, the Moslem has defied all these efforts. If one visits such Moslem lands as Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Persia, and walks in the -streets of the big towns or small villages, and watches the Moslems, one realizes how little Christianity has appealed to these millions of Moslem men and women. The reasons for this must be diverse and complex, and any single judgment would be superficial. For one _ thing, the missionaries could not find means to approach the Moslems, But, in general, this failure of Christian work has been explained by finding fault with the Moslems themselves. The Moslems are fanatical and superstitious and are blind to truth. They have no sincerity to see and accept the truth. They are hypocrites, fanatical followers of old traditions. They are biased against Christianity since the day of their Prophet. Their Holy Koran condemns the Christians, etc. All these reasons may be partly or wholly true, but whether they are sufficient to explain
PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY fí
iN l paene of the Christian missionary work question. | Christianity is a message of true life, it must appeal to all men. We cannot cast out one big section of humanity as hopeless. The message of Christ must interest the Moslems also, and must win their hearts. In this chapter we propose to investigate this question, and looking at the problem from our side, ask whether the presentation of Christianity to the Moslems by the Christians in the past has been true and adequate. We should like to examine our aims and methods, and ask whether we have understood the Moslem mind — and met its needs. We should like to criticize our own Christian ways, rather than to criticize the Moslems. Bishop Gore, speaking about the reaction to Christianity in Europe to-day, says: > ~The Church is largely responsible for it. We must think out again what we believe and how we believe it, so as to be able to teach afresh, in such a way as to interest men’s minds and win their hearts, the old truths about God and Jesus Christ and the Spirit.”
Let us make a study of the picture of the Christian religion as set before the Moslem world, and see whether the Church has not a large responsibility for this in- efficiency of the Christian service in Moslem lands. Let Us investigate,
In order to be fair in our investigation, I want to look at the problem from the Moslem end, and I propose to taxe a few standard books which have been-written by missionaries and published by the missionary societies with the definite purpose of teaching Christ-
MOSLEM MENTALITY GI ity to the Moslems, and see how Christianity
en presented in these books. I have chosen these few books because they have been translated into the leading Moslem languages, and have had a wide cir- culation in Moslem circles in the past.
The first is Dr. Pfander’s book Mizan-ul-Hagq (The Balance of Truth). Dr. C. G. Pfander was a German missionary attached for some years to the German Mission at Fort Shusby, in Georgia, and he has paid frequent visits to Persia and Bagdad. In 1836 the Russian Government forbade that Mission, and Dr. Pfander went to India, Mirzapore, and joined the Church Missionary Society. I understand he has been
LOE some time at Constantinople also, and has held meetings for Moslems at Misir Charshu. He is author of the well-known book Mizan-ul-Hagq, written origin- ally in Persian, and first published in Shushy in 1835. The book has been through several editions, and -~ has been translated into many languages of the Moslems in Asia. It has been widely used by the missionaries in
_ the Near East, and answers to it have been written by Moslems in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, and Turkish.
I propose to dwell on this book, because it has been recognized by Moslems as a standard work representing first the Christian attitude to Islam, and second the Christian religion. The book has lately (1910) been reprinted by the Religious Tract Society, London, in
a form revised by Dr. Clair Tisdall, at the desire of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society. In the Introduction Dr. Tisdall says that “ Its revision was an urgent need, partly to bring it thoroughly up
ESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY (er a
of the Bible, and partly to correct slight errors and ambiguities of language, and partly to remove all apparent ground for the attacks made upon the book.” The book in its original form has an introduction and three parts. In the Introduction the author deals with the problem of the divine revelation: Then follow the three main parts of the book. In the first part the author refutes the Moslem idea that the Bible has been abrogated or corrupted; in the second part the Principal doctrines of the Old and New Testaments _ are set forth; and in the third part the pretensions of Mohammed to the Prophetic office are considered, Let us take some sections to show the general line of arguments of the book. In the Introduction he speaks about the true revelation and its tests as follows: “The first and most important duty of everyone is - never to rest until he knows God as he should, - + - But how shall we know and find the incompre- hensible and invisible God? Can it be by the power and Guidance of our reason only? No, indeed. How can human reason grasp that infinite, eternal, most glorious Being? . . . Reason can understand and judge only those things which it has reached through the agency of the senses; and the world which it has grasped is but that which is visible; it can never reach the in- Visible”? (p. 3).
He speaks about knowing God through Nature, and then continues:
“Without a divine revelation nothing beyond this can be known of the Creator from the creation. The
` MOSLEM MENTALITY AG of the heathen will be a sufficient proof of L
héy never even reached the certain knowledge of one eternal, almighty, omniscient, all-wise, merciful, righteous and holy Creator of heaven and earth. . . $ Even the Greek philosophers. . . asserted that the created could not apprehend the will of his Creator. So, then, as man is ignorant of those matters, how can he learn the will of God? And if he has not acted according to the will of God, how can he obtain His favour? And not having His favour, by what means will he attain true happiness? Therefore it becomes necessary that God should make known in an intelli- gible manner His most high will concerning mankind. . And such a special revelation has God vouchsafed A the sons of man, that by it they might understand “fhe things concerning salvation, which are beyond the power of reason to discover, and by which He has ex- plained His will and purpose concerning man, and
also His commandments and prohibitions to them.”
Dr. Pfander has a distrust of human reason, and uses
~ this as the- basis of the Christian doctrine of revelation. This is most unfortunate in our view, because the Moslem also bases his doctrine of revelation on that same idea. Dr. Pfander continues:
“Now there are many and conflicting religions in the world, and every nation considers its own religion true; but it is impossible that all should be of divine origin; indeed, only one can be true and of God” (p. 5).
This idea is also very misleading as a major premise in proving the truth of the Christian revelation. To
ESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY
all religions and revelations as false in or
: ard the truth of the Christian revelation is very risky indeed. Let us follow further his arguments. _ “What are the genuine marks of the true road which God has appointed, and how can it be distinguished ; from other paths?” asks he, and gives five criteria to test a true revelation, one of which is that “There must be no real contradictions in a true revelation; the important particulars and doctrines contained in the inspired books must be agreeable to one another. This contradiction between the important doctrines and Particulars in a book professing to be a divine revela- ` _ ton will show that the book in question is not of divine Origin ; because as each and all of the attributes of God are perfect, and as He, the most perfect One, can know no deficiency or change, His words also must be free from contradiction and discrepancy.”
Basing on this argument, it has not been difficult: for the Moslem critics to find more contradictions and discrepancies in the Bible than in the Koran, because, ’ although there are contradictions in the Koran, yet it 1$ a whole book in itself; whereas the Bible, compris- ing the Old and New Testaments, covers the literature and the religious, moral, and social ideas of a period of a thousand years at least.
This much for the Introduction of the book. In the ‘St main section of the book (pp. 1-22) he defends the Bible against the Moslem doctrines of abrogation by Saying ; 7 |
“The Mohammedan doctors assert that as by the descent of the Psalms, the Torah, and by the giving
e
Z
fe
MOSLEM MENTALITY
A & tho Gospel, the Psalms were abrogated, so b appearance of the Koran the Gospel also was rendere null. . .. Itshould be noticed, however, that the precepts of the Torah are of two kinds—the external pre- cepts relating to ceremonial questions, and the moral _ precepts relating to the knowledge of God. .. . The - precepts which have fallen into disuse are exclusively those of the first kind; but this has never implied or necessitated the abrogation of the moral and eternal principles and doctrines of the Torah... (p. 7). The Gospel has not annulled or abrogated any one of the passages of the Torah which relate to the know- ledge, of God, Sanctification, and Holy Living.” This is also unfortunate, because it has not been “difficult for the Moslems to quote the Sermon on the Mount “and show how most of these words are diametrically opposite to the moral teaching of the Old Testament. _ On page 66, in proving that the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, he says: “The Holy Scriptures are proved to be the Word of
. God by the predictions which they contain. The Old
Testament contains predictions of the future conditions of the Christians; their dispersion the fall and rise of several remarkable heathen nations; the destruction of Jerusalem, Babylon, and Nineveh; the conquest of Syria and Persia by Alexander, foretold 200 years before the event; and many other predictions.”
“The fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah is a most convincing proof of the inspiration of the Old Testament; for who besides God could foretell the time of the Messiah’s advent, the place of
as yet eae so it is beyond dispute that the contents of the Old Testament were written under Divine directions,”
Leaving aside the question of prediction as a proof of inspiration, let us remember that the Moslem, thinking on the same line, has ascribed many predic- tions to his Prophet. The turning of the Earth round the sun, railways, and even aeroplanes, are said to have been predicted in the Koran!
On page 29 he is more dogmatic; he says: _ “The belief of Christians concerning Prophets and Apostles is this, that although in other matters they may err and omit, through neglect or forgetfulness, yet in the delivery of those matters which they had been commissioned by God to announce, they are free from mistake, omission, and sin. Therefore, whatever the Prophets and Apostles have spoken or written is free from error, And even if the Sacred Books should seem to any one contrary to his reason, there can be no doubt that the fault does not belong to the divine Word, but to the limited reason and want of comprehension of the objector. The Word of God is not under the ‘dominion of reason, but on the contrary, reason must submit to the Word of God.”
On page 22 he refutes the Mohammedan objections to the Bible, and concludes by saying:
“The Sacred Scriptures are the unabrogated’ and uncorrupted Word of God, and obedience to the Precepts and doctrines contained therein is a duty
themselves thoroughly with the doctrines and precepts
of the Law and the Gospel; for they who know and ` obey not the Word of God cannot attain spiritual |
blessedness, and are liable to eternal ruin.”
These are statements and judgments which Moslems also declare against other religions and revelations;
%\ MOSLEM MENTALITY a yibent upon every people and vation. It isi -4
i¥é that Moslems should earnestly labour to acquaint
they do not satisfy a seeking mind; they lead us J
nowhere.
On page 77 he gives five tests for true prophetship, pane which he mentions:
; “As it is impossible that the divine utterances | should contradict one another, so the declarations and doctrines of one claiming to be a prophet, and of the
~ revelation which he brings, must not conflict with the
i i
+, r aia ail
male a Pe
N teachings and writings of the preceding prophets in ~ fundamental particulars.” (Long before Dr. Pfander wrote these words, a learned Indian Moslem, Ahmed
ibn Zain-al-Abidin, in the- beginning of the seven-
teenth century, criticizing a tract written by the
s q ’
Portuguese Hieronymo Xavier and presented to the
Moslem Emperor Jehangir, showed the futility of
this argument by saying: “Christ did not punish the woman taken in adultery. This is a conclusive evidence that Christianity abrogated the Mosaic law . . . you Christians are reduced to this alternative, either you must deny the Mission of Jesus, or must allow that he ae Moses.” )
. ‘‘He should. be endowed with the power of work-} ae a E and of delivering prophecies.”
(F \PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY G + ys L
know how the Moslems have found wa
these arguments. Furthermore, how could Jesus be a true prophet with so many of His declarations conflicting fundamentally with those of Moses and other preceding prophets?
Coming to the most difficult of all problems, the Deity of Jesus Christ, he simply resorts to mystery. On pages 49 ff. he says:
“Christ is one with God, and is God. If it is asked, ‘How can the deity of Christ consist with the unity of
God?” our reply is, that according to the evidence of the Gospel, the deity of Christ cannot be in opposition to the divine Unity. But the question is one which man cannot solve, because the deity of Christ, together with the unity of God, is one of the divine mysteries, the knowledge of which rests with God alone. And when man’s reason utterly fails to comprehend the secrets of God, how shall he presume to disprove those statements concerning this. matter which are contained in the Word of God? How dare he attempt to measure them by his own finite and feeble reason? Surely such attempts are simply blasphemous. Therefore if anyone, On account of his inability to comprehend the deity of Christ, should deny these truths, he is guilty of blasphemous ‘pride. What can we, weak and foolish Servants, say in reference to such divine mysteries as these? Is it possible that we shall have power to contend with God and set at nought His Holy Word In this particular? God forbid! . . . It is not possible to derive any evidence for the proof of these particulars
_ Other than that supplied by the Divine Word, nor
MOSLEM MENTALITY
“8 there any need of it, for the Word of God,
in®évery way an unimpeachable witness, is far more trustworthy than arguments from reason. ‘The Moham- medan truth-seeker, as he believes the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, if he has carefully considered our arguments, will have no misgivings on that score. Thus all the doctrines of the Holy Scrip- tures, whether they appear conformable to reason or not, as he knows they have proceeded from God, will command his acceptance. Is it an impossible thing — that God should command His servants to receive a _ thing which their reason cannot grasp? sje bas
= quite enough for us to learn what is declare in the
Word of God concerning these subjects.”
This is exactly what the Moslem would declare con- cerning the Koran and the Moslem doctrine of God. This kind of argument will never affect his thinking and bring about a change in his beliefs.
Speaking about Salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, he says: “If someone asks, “Was it impos- sible for God, who is Almighty, to save men from sin and hell in some other way? We reply that it is not in the power of any man to fix limits to the wisdom and knowledge of God; but that, since God has appointed this way of salvation for men, it must be regarded as the best of ai mean for the accomplishment of His divine purpose.”
I do not believe there is satisfaction in this kind of argument. I doubt whether any honest and truth-loving man would be convinced of the truth of Christianity in this way and accept it. Dr. Pfander, in another
Ze PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY tise/of his, called Miftah-al-asrar, or “Key of
> states that a circle is an emblem of the Deity, having neither beginning nor end; and as Trigono- metry is the key to its measurements and compre- hension, so by the Trinity alone the Divine Nature can be understood. An Indian Moslem, the author of a pamphlet called The Lion’s Onset (Saulat-uz-Zaigham), draws the figure of a triangle and says scoflingly: “Tf this be the way of their arguing, why anybody may join the Virgin Mary to the Deity, and drawing a square may assert that there is quaternity in Unity.™ It is clear that this kind of argument does not meet the modern Moslem mentality. Some other way must be , found if the Moslem is to be led to a new understand- ing of God.
Let us take another book or a collection of Tracts writien by Dr. Rouse, originally in the Bengali language, on the chief doctrines of religion, contrasting the Christian ati the Islamic views. The following quotations may | give an idea of the apologetics of this book:
“Tf we want to know the truth about what man is and does, we must not form our opinions beforehand . . i but we must ask a good and truthful man to tell us all about it. . . . We must ask the good God to tell us about Himself, and what we do not understand we must believe, because He says it... (p. 3). It is in His Holy Book that He tells us what He is” (p. 5).
By these words Dr. Rouse bases his whole argument on the supposition that the Bible, the Holy Book of
t See Muir’s The Mohammedan Controversy, pP. 25. N
Piva vay
nd the Koran, the Holy Book of the Moslems, is com- pletely false. |
After explaining the nature of God as Trinity, he says:
“The doctrine of the Injil regarding God is so mys- terious that we cannot comprehend it....A dog is an intelligent animal, but does a dog understand what his master is doing when he prays to God? ... Christians believe in the nature of God, which we call Trinity, simply because we hold that this is in accord- vance with the Holy Book of God. . . . We must believe
what He has told us about Himself in His Holy Book” (pp- 13 £).
The simile in this section is s certainly not a just and happy one!
In the sixth Tract he defends the person of Jesus Christ by means of the prophecies in the books of the Old Testament from Genesis to Zechariah, passages whose real interpretation is so doubtful. Then he concludes by saying: ‘“‘Jesus will become king; those who are His subjects will receive perfect blessedness from Him. But those who reject Him, and refuse to become His subjects, will receive terrible punishment” (p. 59) (Ps. ii. 6-12).
In the ninth Tract he labours. much to prove that the Saviour must be from the line of Isaac, and not that of Ishmael; therefore Jesus is the true Prophet and Saviour; and not Mohammed. He says: “Ishmael was the son of the slave; but Isaac was the son of his wife.
. The birth of Ishmael took place in the ordinary —
Vito) MOSLEM MENTALITY ( Cy «\ “=the Christians, is completely true and must be beli
2 ae of his mothe was ninety, and by a spiritual eet she was able to give birth to a son, Conse- quently in this respect also Isaac was greater than _ Ishmael. . . . Again, Abraham made Isaac his ‘heir, but sent Ishmael away from his presence. . . . Again, God promised that the Saviour should be born in the line of Isaac (Gen. xvi. 10). But God gave Ishmael no promise about salvation.”
Chapter x deals with the Koran: “No proof can be given to show that the Koran is the Word of God
. . and it can be shown by many proofs that the Koran is not the Word of God.” Then he mentions some of these proofs, and concludes by saying: ““Brethren, cast aside the Koran, and receive the Injil.”
It is needless to say that Christian apologetics to-day rests on quite other lines than these. This kind of reasoning will hardly appeal to any mind at the present time, certainly not to the Moslem. =
Let us take another book, printed in Arabic, origin- ally written by Dr. Potter, under the title of Roots? and Branches. 1 am quoting from the fourth edition published in 1921. Page 3 is on the Bible, and says:
“Is reason (akl) a sufficient judge in religious truth? Can we rely on it and submit to its judgment? No, never. We need a supernatural thinking power. What is then the function of reasọn? It is to differentiate between the eternal and temporal (Rom. i. 20), by which we comprehend the eternal power which created the universe. Can we suffice with this kind of knowledge? No, man needed a heavenly revelation that should
Ha ) MOSLEM MENTALITY , a Teach him who God is and His attributes ; His deali
men, men’s dealings with Him, to show the ‘weakness of human nature and to express the love of God toward fallen men in spite of theirsins. . . . For this reason God has given us His Holy Books the Law and the Gospels, that is the Holy Bible. . . . It is- on the Bible that the Christians build their faith... . What does it mean to say that the Book has been revealed by God? It means this, that God, the Almighty, has directed the minds of its writers in a special way according to His will, making them free of error in what they wrote. ...And we believe that the
< Word of God in the books of the Old and New
* Testaments is the only rule for faith and practice,
~ and contains all that is necessary for guiding men in
this life.” i _ On page 17, speaking about the Holy Trinity, he says:
“In the Old Testament there are indications of this doctrine. . . . What was hidden in the Old Testa- ment became open in the New. The word Elohim in the Old Testament, and the words in the first chapter of Genesis, ‘Let us make men in our-image,’ point to the Trinity. . . . The.: can be no contra- diction between the unity of essence (Jevher) and plurality of persons (uqnum). For example, look at this triangle: it is one perfect geometrical form, but it has three essential angles, and without these it would not be a triangle. Thus it is true that the creation is through the grace of God, and salvation through the Word of God, and sanctification through the wisdom
To state and Brave the Christian doctrine af the Trinity by the three angles of a triangle is certainly not convincing. We must follow different reasoning if we want to present Christianity to the Moslems at the present time.
To multiply examples is not necessary; but let us see what has been the effect of this kind of reasoning on the Moslem mind. I want to quote from a Turkish writer to show this impression with regard to Christ- ianity taken from such Christian literature.
There ave three volumes written by the eminent Turkish writer Ahmed Midhat Effendi, about forty years ago, with regard to the relation of Islam to Christianity and the missionary activities in Moslem lands. These books are a mirror to show the Moslem conception with regard to the presentation of Christ- lanity by the Christians to the Moslems. Ahmed Midhat Effendi quotes from many Christian books, and he summarizes his ideas as follows:
“Looking from the Christian point of view, the problem is stated thus: Man at the time of the creation was more perfect than now; he was a creature little below the Divine, and was free from sickness and death, and had no need to toil for his daily living. Then he ate of the forbidden fruit and fell from that — state of perfection, and was thrown into the world to live a poor and hard life. God, being angry at this fall, has made even Adam’s whole posterity responsible for it: so they have been deprived of seeing the face
| ~. MOSLEM MENTALITY GI OFN od. Finally, Jesus has come to the world, or, sp “ing more correctly, God has come down to the world in the form of Jesus; has sacrificed Himself, and has saved men from the responsibility of the fall of Adam. In order to save men from this responsibility, a person free from this responsibility of the Fall was necessary, and Christ is that Person. Because all other men, being of the generation of Adam, have shared in this responsi- bility. Christ having been born without a father, is not on the line of the human generation under that responsibility. Thus, if it were not for the fall of Adam - it wouldn’t be necessary for Jesus to come to the world; _ in that case there wouldn’t have been any need for the Trinity either. But because Adam and all mankind have fallen, it has been necessary for the Son of God to come down to the world to save mankind. The Trinity is also indispensable.” Ahmed Midhat Effendi comments as follows: ““Now-this is the summary of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Is it possible to get any reason- = able sess out of such a statement? But it is a glory of Christianity that men cannot understand this doctrine: it is beyond reason: it is a mystery” (pp. 29 ff).
“The Christian God is composed of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These are not three different names of the same Person; they are the names of three separate and different Persons.
. This is quite unreasonable. 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, and not 1 (pp. 37 £).
“According to Christian teaching the divinity has passed from the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost;
RESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY Q r
A S2 rhe 7 are all of the same grade. This is very st “andéed, and anybody who does not believe God i in this way cannot become a Christian (p. 42).
“According to the Christian teaching, all those who are not sanctified through Jesus Christ from the pollu- tion of Adam cannot have eternal salvation. AH men are defiled, and however good and honest a person may be, it is of no use for salvation unless he becomes a Christian. Therefore all men,„ millions of people,
born and dead before Jesus have all gone down to hell, but Jesus has mediated for them also with God and has descended to hell and has saved them. ‘This is exactly what is stated in the Nicene Creed. Anybody who does not believe any of these statements becomes anathema! ... All this is based on the story of Adam and Eve, which is already false and unhistorical (pp. 49 ff.). Even the gospels do not mention one word about this doctrine; only Paul mentions it. . . . Most of these ideas have been imported into G@hristianity from Paganism by the Church Fathers in the ay centuries” (p. 76). h,
This is the Christian religion as Midhat Effendi gathers it from the Christian books, and it gives us a picture of the misconceptions in the -Moslem mind. And have we not ourselves been responsible in some measure for these misconceptions? Has not this been the Christian presentation of Christianity? However, the question that concerns us at the present time is whether these are adequate and true presentations of Christianity as we understand Christianity and Christ to-day. Can we expect that this kind of apolo-
| MOSLEM MENTALITY | G jo ¢s/will appeal to the Moslem mind? Will su L
presentation convince the Moslem of the truth of
Christianity? Will it attract him to Christ, and help
him to become Christ-like in his character and life?
Have we emphasized the essential things in Christ- ianity? That is the question before us now, and three -points may be meñtioned in this connection.
1. In our presentation of Christian doctrine in the past, it has been a great mistake to begin with the idea of God, in place of Jesus Christ. It is a simple fact that Christianity is Jesus Christ, and has begun with Jesus
_ Christ. The Christian idea of God has not been the result of any intellectual reasoning, but it has sprung _ directly from the life and teaching of Jesus. The first "disciples learned the Christian God through Him. Would not that be the right way of présenting the Christian God to the Moslems also? Instead of inter- preting God through Jesus Christ, we have tried to interpret Jesus Christ through God. The ideas of the Moslem with regard to God are imperfect, and if he begins from these, he cannot have a right idea of the person of Christ. The difficulty with many Christians even is the same to-day. They have a certain conception of God, with some abstract attributes, and they struggle to interpret Jesus Christ with these conceptions and atiributes. The result has been confusion in Christian thought. It is extremely important that the Moslem first of all should understand Jesus and his life before tackling the Christian idea of God; therefore it 1s wrong to begin with God in presenting Christianity
to him. |
RESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY {2%
=). /In the past Christians have not only madeja , * : ike by starting with God, but also by emphasizing a metäphysical God, and consequently by teaching a metaphysical Christ to the Moslems. The chief conten- tion of the Moslems against the Christian is that the Christian believes in three Gods. They say the Christian Holy Bible says so, the Church creeds teach so; thus the Moslem is biased against the Christian doctrine of God. Now by emphasizing a metaphysical God and Christ, the Christians have played into the hands of the Moslems, and have confirmed them in their misun- derstandings with regard to Christianity. When the Moslem reads such a statement as: “We worship one God in Trinity, but Trinity in Unity, neither con- founding the persons nor dividing the substance, the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible; yet they are not three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.”?, When we say: “The Father is perfect God; the Son is perfect God; the Holy Spirit is perfect God; yet they are not three Gods, but one God”; does this clarify his mind? Could this clear up his mind with regard to the Christian idea of God? -1 do not want to discuss the theological truth of these statements, but what I want to point out is this, that this kind of thinking is quite alien to the Moslem mind; it does not attract him to Christianity; it does not _ illuminate his mind with regard to the Christian idea of God and Christ. It does terribly confuse his mind, and confirms him in his suspicion of Christianity. It is no wonder that the present day Moslem writers
_ MOSLEM MENTALITY
idiculed this as a relic of the intellectual jug
: e Middle Ages. We must modify our statements with regard to God, and find a new way which will dispel the misunderstandings in the Moslem mind with regard to the Christian idea of God, and clarify his thought. |
3. In the preseñtation of Christianity in the past, it has been a mistake to emphasize the mysterious and the supernatural to prove the/trutlh of the Christian revelation. We have tried to prove the truth of the Bible by emphasizing the mysterious and the super- ~- natural in it. This never convinces the Moslem with - the. old mentality, because the Orthodox Moslem himself resorts to that same method of the mysterious and the supernatural in proving the truth of his book and his Prophet. ‘The Moslem with the new mentality is also never satisfied with it, because he protests against everything that is not comprehended by human reason. For him the mystery of the divine revelation = iş notan argument for, but against, the truth of the Christian revelation. ‘The supernatural has been a stumbling-block to his accepting the truth. If we are going to win the interest of the Moslems to Christianity, and convince them of the truth of the Bible and Jesus Christ, there must be another way than this appeal to the mysterious and supernatural.
We might extend our investigation to the other doctrines of the Christian faith also, but this is not needful. We must accept the fact that there is a chaos to-day in the Moslem mind with regard to the Christian doctrines. Right from the beginning there have been
fisuaderstandings in the Moslem mind with r
2 a, ot ita
RESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 6L e
e Christian religion, and the presentation of Christianity in the last century by Christians has not cleared away those misunderstandings. This is a sad thing to confess, but it is true. I mean in no way to depreciate the service of those books and tracts in the past; they have been useful in their time; but I feel convinced that they have finished their ane and a new presentation of Christianity to the Moslem is urgently needed at present. In missionary circles in the last few years there has been much discussion with regard to the method, whether it should be polemic or persuasive, It is evident that the Christian workers are not satisfied with the old methods. But let us remember that there is a deeper problem than the problem of method merely. We ought to clarify what the Christian teaching is with regard to God and Christ, and what we really mean by Christianity. The Moslems are in confusion on these matters, and no clear answer has,been given to their inquiries. Just recently two of the Constanti- nople University Professors, discussing the aim of the Protestant missions, judged the Protestant movement as a religious-nationalistic revolt of the Anglo-Saxon and German peoples against the Imperialism of the Latin races, condemned the missions as institutions established for the purpose of implanting a foreign language, foreign national ideals, and a foreign religion, and challenged the Missionaries to come
forward and state openly their aim and purpose.
The Missionaries ought to face this problem squarely,
t See the weekly Hayat, February 9, 1928.
ig) MOSLEM MENTALITY E S “rand there ought tobe a definite effort made to pre-
pare an adequate presentation of Christianity for the Moslem inquirers. The Missionaries in the fields, and the thinkers in the Western centres of study, must join hand in hand and produce something new, clarifying the mind. of the honest inquirer. If there 1s to be any real progress made in Moslem circles, the present chaotic condition with regard to the Christian faith must be cleared up. A way must be found to present Christ to the Moslems convincingly and reasustably. What should be the lines of such a presenta- tion will be our subject in the next chapter.
SL
THE REAL ISSUES BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER VIII
THERE are issues between Islam and Christianity which are more fundamental and vital than any of the lines generally emphasized in the Christian portrait of Christ and Christianity in the past. We propose to discuss some of these points in this chapter. | Let us first take the idea of God in Islam and in Christ- lanity. The controversy between Islam and Christ- ianity with regard to the idea of God so far has been mainly between the monotheistic conception of Islara and the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity. The Moslems say that the Christians believe in a God in Trinity almost equal to three Gods; whereas the Moslems themselves believe in the one God. This issue has been stressed by the Moslems, and the Christ- ians have accepted this as a vital issue, and conse- quently a very hot controversy has been carried on as to the question whether God is one or triune. This controversy ħas led to no result, and, moreover, it has obscured ‘the fundamental differences between the Moslem idea of God and the Christian idea. The most basic and vital difference between Islam and Christ- ianity with reference to the idea of God is not whether God is one or triune, but His character and ethical attributes. The main question at issue is not how many,
MOSLEM MENTALITY G
what is God like? Is He one who is upright, j
nd perfectly righteous, or one who acts arbitrarily as He pleases, without any moral discrimination? Is He good and only good, or is He the source of evil also? What is His attitude to the creation, and especially to human life? Is He a despotic monarch who can deal with men as He likes, or is He a good and loving Father of all men? These are some of the important issues between the Mosiem and the Christian ideas of God, and these ought to be brought right to the front in the discussion of the idea of God, otherwise the contro- versy on the doctrine of unity or trinity will lead nowhere in convincing the Moslem mind, and besides, will obscure the main issue. When the Moslem thinks - of Christianity, it is always on the line of the unity or the trinity of God, and he always wants to combat Christianity on that issue time and again. He knows that there can be no end of discussion on that point, and the Christians cannot give him full satisfaction; therefore he always makes that an issue between Islam and Christianity. Now the Christians, by accepting con- troversy on that plane, have played into the hands of the Moslems, and no results have come out of such a controversy. If we want to teach the Christian idea of God to the Moslems, and convince them of the Christian God, the plane of controversy ought to be changed completely. We must try to bring the Moslem first of all to a new plane of thinking on this problem, to the plane of ethical and moral issues. We must help him to see the problem in that new perspective, and then we can discuss the matter with him, This
THE REAL ISSUES _ issue has been missed in the presentatio 1
Take the doctrine of revelation. So far the main con- troversy between Islam and Christianity on this point has been carried on as to whether the Koran'or the Bible is the real revelation of God. Both the Moslem and the Christian have asked: “Which is false, and which is true, the Koran or the Bible?” The Moslems have held first that the Koran is the true revelation superseding all others; and the Christians have held that the Bible is the true revelation and there can be no other. In this controversy various tests have been suggested to try the truth of these revelations, each side aiming to prove his Book to be true, and the other false, by these tests. How much pains the Christians have taken-in the past to show that the Bible is the true revelation of God because it is verbally correct from one cover to the other, without any single contradiction or mistake in it, dictated word by word by God, and written by the holy men in a super- natural way! But the Moslems also have followed the same method to prove that the Koran is the true revelation of God, and they have been glad to carry on controversy on that basis, because it has not been difficult for them to find some contradictions in the text of the Bible and to show the falsity of the Christian revelation. One Moslem writer recently, quoting the passage in the book of Genesis, chap. xix..33, which tells of the immoral act of the daughters of Lot with their father, said; “This is the Holy Book of the Christians!” There is much confusion on this problem of the Bible
MOSLEM MENTALITY
accepted by the Christians as the true revelati
Göd, and this must be cleared up before there is any hope of progress on this question. The Moslem ought to be clear as to the Christian attitude toward the Old Testament. He must understand that Christianity is not the Old Testament. Moreover, he must understand that Christianity is not the religion of a book, but something far superior to it. He must be clear with regard to the Christian idea/of revelation: that the main issue between Islam and Christianity in this respect is not whether the Bible or the Koran is the true revelation, but that Islam and Christianity differ fundamentally in their idea of divine revelation and its true tests. The main question is, How does God reveal Himself? Is revelation something given magically to a person in ecstasy, or is it something ethical and “spiritual, arising out of a spiritual experience of fellowship with God? Is the true test of a revelation its antiquity, its mysteriousness, its language, its grammar, or its spiritual meaning, its appeal to the deepest needs of the human soul, its moral sublimity and its value for our daily life? Which one? The Moslem mind always seeks refuge in the idea of the mysterious. and the inexplicable in thinking about revelation. He must be brought to a new level of thinking, to a mora! and a spiritual perspective, in order to see the right place of the Bible in Christianity. Or take the conception of Prophetship. Controversy on this line has been carried so far by contrasting Mohammed and Jesus, and urging people to accept one or the other, the Christians defending Christ and the Moslems Mo-
_ THE REAL ISSUES Ce ed. So the question that has been stressed
í Christ or Mohammed? And both sides have accumulated evidences to prove their case. ‘The-prob- lem of miracles wrought by the Prophets naan made a matter of supreme importance in this issue. The Christians have emphasized the miraculous birth of Jesus and His wonderful deeds; and the Moslems have pointed first of all to the miraculousness of the Koran as the supreme miracle, but they have not been slack either in ascribing many other miracles to
Mohammed since his birth. The controversy has been very sharp on this question, but without any result. Controversy on such an issue has not brought con- viction to the Moslem. The question ought to have been discussed on a different plane altogether. The issue in this problem is the character and message of a true prophet. Is the prophet one who has shown abnormal states of mind and has done some miraculous
acts, or is he one who has exhibited the divine character in his life, and has made God real to men? Is the test of true prophetship abnormal power, or moral character and spiritual life? The true prophet is one who can become a real example to others in his character, one ~ who can open new channels for the outpouring of the divine life into the human. The true prophet is not a magician, but one who is perfectly human. The controversy between Islam and Christianity on this problem of prophetship ought to have been carried on on this plane; whereas this aspect of the problem has been altogether neglected, and the miraculous and the supernatural aspects have been emphasized. o
wat MOSLEM MENTALITY GL oNFhe.plane of controversy ought to be changed in
patter also, if any result is to be expected from the sion,
Take the whole idea of religion. The issue as it stands pay in the minds of the Moslems and the Christians s, “Which one is the true religion, Islam or Christ- ianity?” The two’ have been put in contrast, and the people have been forced to accept one'as true and reject the other as false. The Christians have tried to show that Islam is false, and that salvation can only be obtained through Christianity. On the other hand, the Moslems have tried to show that Islam is the only true religion, and salvation can be obtained only _through Islam. The result of this controversy has been very unsatisfactory, as it has intensified the fecling of hatred on both sides. It has indeed been very unfortunate to carry on the controversy on that plane. The issue between Christianity and Islam as religions _is much deeper than that. In fact, to put the question
whether Islam or Christianity is false is. to miss the main point. The main issue between Islam and Christianity is in the meaning of religion. The main question is, “‘ What is religion, and what do we under- stand by it?” Is religion to submit ourselves to the magical influence of some rites or ceremonies, or is. it real fellowship with God? Is salvation to try to avoid the wrath of God by the performance of some outward ordinances, or is it a real and spiritual change in man? What is really sin? Is it a pollution that is natural to us and shall rule our lives, or can it be overcome by the regeneration of our whole nature? What is
THE REAL ISSUES | ness? Is it the arbitrary letting go of a cri
>> byá& monarch at the request of one of his vezirs, or is it a complete change in the attitude of man toward God and His purpose, What is faith in God? Is it to repeat some words of creed about God, or ta obey God? Is it to commit ourselves into His hands blindly, or to love Him as our Father? Is religion a thing altogether other-worldly, an assurance of bliss after death, or is it a thing which purifies our inner life and our outward conduct, and’ gives us the right attitude to life? Is religion something which can be dispensed with as an unnecessary scruple, or is it the foundation of right relationship with God and men? | Is religion a problem of life, or is it a problem of mere speculation? What is the end of religion? Why be religious at all? Has religion any guidance for our individual and social problems, and can it show the way for the right solution of those problems, or is it merely a concern of the old and the ignorant? Is religion an intellectual assent to a creed, or is it a Way of Life?
These are the main issues between Islam and Christ- ianity, and these ought to be the tests of true religion. ~ Itis a pity that in the Christian presentation of Christ- laity to the Moslems in the past these issues have either altogether been neglected, or have been dealt with merely as secondary matters. We have missed the main issues, and instead of bringing the Moslems up to the Christian plane of vision, and’ helping them to see things from that perspective, we have come down to the Moslem plane of seeing, thinking, and discuss-
MOSLEM MENTALITY
atters. Thus no real progress has been mad
Yé past in the controversy between Christianity and Islam. We ought to confess that we have made a poor job of a great trust which was put into our hands. We have tried. to substitute for one creed another creed, for one ritual another ritual, and for one system of ordinances another system. We have not understood our treasure, and we have not known how to make the best use of it. Men suffer from wrong mentalities, and so far as a person keeps on thinking on a wrong plane, no progress can be expected from discussion on that plane. First his outlook must be changed, and the way ought to be clarified for right vision. The eye must be turned to the right point before
7 one can see things rightly.
?
The case of Islam and Christianity at the present time is very much like the case of Judaism and Jesus Christ in those days of His life in Palestine twenty centuries ago. The Jews always wanted to draw Jesus back to their level of thinking, and urged Him to answer their questions. He never did so. He would never accept controversy and discussion on that level; He would never answer their questions. Whenever He was asked questions, He always pointed to more funda- mental issues, and tried to bring them to a new plane | of thinking. They asked Him the question about a woman with seven husbands. Jesus never answered that question, but pointed to the basic fallacy of their idea of the next life. They asked Him hard questions on the use of the Sabbath Day, but Jesus never answered those questions directly; He pointed to the fallacy of
aad
E THE REAL ISSUES Cr -\ Bo ugstion by saying : ““My Father worketh until no
X work also.” The fallacy was in the Jewish idea of God resting and doing nothing. He wanted them to change their idea of a lazy God. They asked Him questions on His relationship with the publicans and the sinners, as He was eating and drinking with them. Jesus never argued with them on that plane ythe trouble with them was that they had no idea of the worth of the human personality, or a right conception of the attitude of God to human beings. Therefore, how beautifully Jesus answered that question by the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodigal Son! He was a master teacher in His ability to see deep into the mind of the questioner, and no wonder that in every case He won His ground. There was
_ ho escape for men before Him. Have we been able to show that insight in our controversy with the Moslems? Have we Christians grasped the main issues at the bottom of the Moslem quéstions with regard to Christ- lanity? Have we understood enough the mind of the Moslem and its real troubles? What has our portrait of Jesus been? Have we made a worthy representation
of His person, or have we made almost a caricature ~ of His beautiful character? These are important ques- tions for us, the Christian workers and the missionaries, to think over with deep humility of spirit, if there is to be any real progress in work for Moslems.
SL
CHAPTER IX
THE EMPHASIS NEEDED AT THE PRESENT TIME
Tsr Moslem peoples are passing through a great transition. It will be true to say that there have been more changes in the Moslem lands during the last thir- teen years than in the whole past history of thirteen centuries. They are passing through a great trans- formation, not only in their external life and habits, = but in their inner ideas and their whole mentality. Islam is changing ; : it is being melted into a new mould. Therefore it is extremely important that we should “understand their mentality, and emphasize those things which are alive in their minds. We ought to be intelli- gent in our service to the Moslems, otherwise we may not produce good results, and we may even do harm. To discover the things that are alive to-day in the Moslem mind and ought to be emphasized by the Christian workers will be our study in this chapter, Right at the outset let us make it clear that any work carried on by the Christians for Moslems must not be destructive and critical, but constructive. We must realize that the relationship between Christ- ians and Moslems has been so bitter in the past, and “especially the Moslems are-so conscious of their in- feriority at the present time, that any critical attitude shown by the Christians will not help them to be more
“use intensifying bitterness: we must aim toward recon-- ciliation. Besides, the Moslems themselves are criticizing so intensely their own conditions and beliefs, that it
would be almost unnecessary to add anything to it. It would be much better to leave the Moslems to themselves on these matters, and if we have anything to suggest in the way of helping them to solve their own problems, we must emphasize those things. Let us show that our attitude is not that of criticism and judgment, but that we are co-workers with them in finding the right solution to the difficult tasks before them.
The other thing on which we ought to be clear is that the presentation of Christianity must not be doctrinal. A doctrinal presentation of Christianity will not appeal to the Moslem mind at the present time. Orthodox Islam has its own metaphysics and dialetics, and discussion carried on those lines will. never bring about a change of conviction. In fact, any statement made with the view of showing the superiority of the Christian religion to Islam in doctrine will make the Moslem feel more fanatically attached to his own ~ beliefs. It will not touch the real trouble in his mind. On the other hand, such a presentation of Christianity will not appeal to the Moslem with the Modernist mentality, because he does not consider these doctrinal matters vital at all; he does not care whether they are proved this way or the other way. It is true that such men confess themselves Moslems, but they mean simply that they belong to the Moslem group in which they
16) 2 | MOSLEM MENTALITY . “Q
“re/born. We do not want to depreciate the val E is that it is useless to begin with it. After all, religion is more than dogma, and Christianity is more than creed. We must speak to the conditions of the peoples and their needs.
It is a sound method to begin where we find the pupil. We must find his interests and begin with them. Now the Moslems are all interested in the problem of life. They want to live, and live well. They have looked around, and have found Western civilized life far - superior to their own, and have determined to adopt it. . The chief motive of the movements in the Moslem _ lands at the present time is to Westernize their life. _ That is the current mentality, and all Moslems are deeply interested in this matter. Consequently, the question before the Christian agencies would be to take up this matter of Western civilization, show its basis, and especially to indicate its vital connection with the Christian religion, if there is any. This problem of the Western civilization and the Christian religion is a live subject to-day in most Moslem circles, and the Moslems are discussing it already. In fact, one can hardly read any serious book written by Moslems to-day which does not touch this question. They say: “To be, or not to be, that is the question’; but has Christianity or Christ got anything to do with it? That is the problem in the Moslem mind to-day. How can the Christians contribute to this problem?
I want to suggest four points which represent prin- ciples essential to any true civilization, and take their
the Christian workers, and may serve to illuminate the Moslem mind on the whole question. ‘These are:
1. A supreme respect and loyalty to truth;
2. A deep sense of the sacredness of human per- sonality ;
3. A firm belief in the solidarity of Hea and fellowship of men;
4. An indomitable faith in the central place of love in human relationships.
` Let us take these points one by one and show their | relevance to the problems in the Moslem mind.
1. A supreme respect and loyalty to truth. All modern science is based on an appreciation of truth, and a deep sense of loyalty to truth. The scientist seeks truth, because he believes that truth is valuable, and he remains loyal to truth in his search and discovery of truth. Without this there can be no great scientific discovery. In fact, all human progress is based on it. Love of truth and fidelity to truth are essential in all departments of life. No work can be done, no task can be achieved without it. Honesty and truthfulness are the pillars of the social life. If all men were liars, there could be no human society. Only when the members of a group care for truth and have a great respect for truth can that society live and make _ Progress. In the last days of Rome we are toid that no two persons trusted each other. It is no wonder that Rome went to destruction. Now Moslems need to
MOSLEM MENTALITY G ie erstand this well. Islam as a system of society 1qc E is “ery much. Moslems do not trust each other. In Moslem communities hypocrisy is the accepted state of all men; truthfulness may come as an exception. The — first thing supposed in dealing with a man is that he is telling a lie. No society can be built on that basis. I believe this will be a great problem for the new Moslem States which are in a process of the formation of independent groups. The Moslem States will stumble on this point. The most intelligent Cairo paper, the Weekly Stassa, asked recently this question of its readers (July 16, 1927): “In Egypt one seldom meets a man _ who keeps either appointments or promises. Is there a -cure for this?” This shows the conditions in Egypt. Let - wus take the example of Turkey. The Turkish papers have been lately complaining of lack of credits given _ by the banks to the farmers. They say that the products of the year are plentiful, but waiting on the farms, because the farmers have no funds to reap and bring the harvest to the market. What is the reason of this trouble? Is it lack of money in the country? There are a few banks in Turkey, and there is an Agricultural Bank with the object of helping the farmers in par- ticular. What is then the trouble? Let the Moslems ‘themselves speak:
“This year in Adana the products are abundant, but the farmer is unable to take advantage of this abundance, because he has no money. He is at the -mercy of userers, who are lending him money at such a high rate as will kill him financially. The Agricul- iural Bank itself has declined to lend money to the
<@MPHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME fẹ A E=Mers/on short terms. In the Adana district to-day
mr°of 200,000 liras is needed for this purpose, but the bank undertakes to lend only 40,000.. The Adana paper complains of this state of things, and says that this will be a disaster to the farmers of the country. A letter from Hassankale shows worse conditions still. They say millions of okes of cereals are getting spoiled in the barns because of the impossibility of exporting them. It is not so difficult to predict that as years pass by, the Turkish people will give up farming.” “How- ever, we hear that the Government in that same place has planned a school at a cost of 100,000 liras. We are glad of this, but a school does not solve the economic problem. What is the use of education to these people if they cannot sell their cattle and cereals? Their fathers were illiterate, and they will be educated, but both will suffer from empty stomachs ! Before starting a school we must take measures to better our economic con- ditions. Education is not mere ability to wead or to write,” 1
“We often read that banks are being instituted ia many places in our country (Turkey). We read eulogies in their praise, but the reality is quite different. See what an Adana paper, Turk Souzi, says: |
~ ‘Our farmers have been in terrible misery the last few years. The banks and other institutions have utilized the ignorance of the farmers and have filled their safes with money. We want to say, plainly that the banks in Adana have been thé destroyers of busi- ness and agriculture. Directors of the banks, with their
* Daily Igdam, May 10, 1927-
MOSLEM MENTALITY S1. xpi rience and lack of administrative power,
caused much confusion. Once they lent money to everybody, and now they decline to lend money even to the most trustworthy. They pressed the farmer terribly, and the farmer to-day is drowned in his debt and its heavy interest. There is plenty of produce this year, but what isthe use of it? All this produce was sold six months ago at half-price to the usurers. To-day in all countries the rate of interest has fallen, whereas our banks are still charging 16 per cent. The official rate fixed by the Government is 9 per cent., and yet they are charging 16 per cent. Why are they doing so? The Ministry of Finance in Angora is imposing new taxes upon the people, but this is not sufficient. It must create also the means to enable people to pay those taxes.’ ”’
Again, see what the paper of Ordu says:
“Our products are decreasing. There is a crisis in the. market. The prices ‘are falling. Our farmers are producing now only 40 kantars of hazel-nuts instead
-of 120 kantars. Besides, they are being tormented under thé terrible devil called usury. The Ottoman Bank used to give credits to some farmers, at least to those who owned the land, but it has declined to give any credit now. The Agricultural Bank follows that policy. These things are causing much trouble, and will bring grave results.’
These quotations show plainly that the mere
-establishment of banks cannot ameliorate the financial condition of a country. There must be truthfulness and
t Daily Jgdam, May 23, 1927.
PHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME
ence among the people. There is so muc ~deceittalness that the banks cannot function as they ought: to do. It seems clear that the banking system
is not based merely on money; there ought to be also = good faith. The Turks are beginning to understand this by experience.
Years ago the Moslems complained that the Armenian money-lenders lent money to the Moslems at high interest. A good many: Western writers thought this was one of the causes for the massacres and perse- cutions. To-day the Turkish money-lenders are not only charging two or three times more than the Armenians charged, but they are even refusing to lend any money to their own people. The Armenian, without any political backing, was willing to put his money into the hand of the Moslems, trusting their word and taking the risk of losing it altogether actually. It is reported that the Anatolian farmers are now appre-- clating much more the help of the Christian money- lenders. They are so disgusted with the oppression of these Moslem money-lenders, who are simply destroying, them without any conscience.
This is only an example in one aspect of life, although an important aspect in an agricultural country like Turkey. The Moslem States will meet the same trouble in all departments of their commercial life. Ultimately they will be obliged to consider this question of honesty and truthfulness, whether it be in the official circles or among the common people. There must be a recog- nized sense of respect and loyalty to truth, otherwise there can be no economic progress. Economic develop-
MOSLEM MENTALITY S
nl/ is connected with the character of a pe L
But how will Moslems acquire and establish this sense - of truthfulness? Islam teaches of a Prophet whose char- acter is far from being a model in this respect, and an Allah who is capricious and can change His word and act as He likes. So long as a people believe in such a Prophet as their-guide, and such a capricious Allah as their God, they cannot establish this principle of loyalty to truth in their social life. If Allah and the Prophet are excused for lies, the people surely are. This is the state of mind of the Orthodox Moslems. On the other hand, if you are an Agnostic, and do not believe in a God of truth and righteousness, you cannot remain loyal to the truth either. Disbelief in a good God ulti- mately means disbelief in truth and goodness. Our faith in God shows our faith in the ground of the Uni- verse and of all life. If the ground of the Universe is chaos without a moral principle, life also will be ` likewise. That is the trouble with the Moslem who is of the Agnostic type of mind. He does not believe in a God of truth; therefore Truth and Righteousness have no absolute value for him. They are mere social
- customs, and may be changed according to the exi- . gencies of life. Surely no solid political or social life
can be based on such a loose foundation. Neither the » teaching of the Orthodox. Islam, nor modern Agnosti- cism, can provide a firm moral foundation. Loyalty to truth comes from a deep belief in the moral basis ~ of the whole Universe. It springs from a faith in a God of Truth and Righteousness, and that was what Christ taught and lived, and ultimately gave
MPHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME SL eht 3
for. The Moslems sooner or later will hav dér Him.
2. A deep sense of the sacredness of human personality. The population of a country and their general welfare are essential elements in the formation of a strong national
_ life. Countries whose population is decreasing, whose people are poor and unhealthy, and are separated by class distinctions, cannot expect to hold a strong place in the world. Therefore all civilized nations care much for hygiene, prevention of disease, child- welfare, etc., and use all means to improve their population and ameliorate their social conditions. Governments spend huge sums to establish hospitals and social welfare centres, and adopt new laws to provide better conditions of life. Movements like the liberation. of the slaves and the enfranchisement of women are developments on the same line. It is
_ important, however, to remember that these social movements in the civilized countries are not things arising out of nationalistic and economic considera- tions; but they may be traced back to a spiritual and, moral root. They have arisen from the spiritual sense of the sacredness of human life and a moral responsi- ~ bility for the welfare of others. Men have come to believe that all life is sacred, and however poor a person may
-be, he has a right as a human being to the means for
the right development of his personality. In Europe almost all pioneer work in social reform has been mulated by this spiritual sense. Men have recognized all life as sacred, and all—man, woman, or child—as the gift of God. Even medicine has been based on this
Vpn 2 2k , MOSLEM MENTALITY : idez. Doctors have believed in the sacredness L,
and earnest research workers in medical laboratories have toiled hard to make new discoveries to save life. These are all moral and spiritual ideas in their essence.
Let us look at Moslem lands from this point of view. The death-rate is very high, and the welfare of the peoples in Moslem lands is very low compared with Western lands. In England the death-rate is below 12 per thousand per year. In the towns in Asia Minor the death-rate among the Moslems certainly is over 35 per thousand, three times as high. The official statistics of the municipality of Constantinople with regard to the deaths during the week July 8-15, 1927, - at Constantinople, are very significant in this respect: 312 persons died at Constantinople during that week," and only 27 are recorded as born; 20 of these 27 newly born children have died the same week. Of the 312 deaths, 99 are infants below one year; 26 are below five but above one year of age; and 4 persons have committed suicide.2 These numbers tell a great deal about the social conditions in a great capital city like Constantinople. Surely the conditions in the interior must be worse, owing to the lack of means of treating sicknesses by modern medical methods. The Turks are considering this problem, and are taking pains to change all this. They are trying to train more physicians
t The population of Constantinople is about 750,000, according to the census of that same year. This means a death-rate of 22 per thousand, if we take 912 as a weekly average for the year. Surely in the winter months the death-rate is higher. s P
2 Quoted in Jjtehad, August 1, 1927, from the daily Milliyet of July 22, i927, Constantinople. |
q EMPHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME SL AK end them all over the country. They are tryin
‘organize more municipal hospitals, dispensaries, etc., everywhere. These things are all good, and will help a great deal to better the conditions. But there is one thing more which is essential in making these means efficient: the doctors, the officials of the municipality, and the people, must have a sense of the sacredness of life, otherwise those means and methods will be of little use. The doctor will do his business officially and give good reports, but will not take a deep concern in the welfare of the people. The children will be sick, and unless the mothers and fathers cherish a deep sense of the sacredness of childhood, hospitals will not help them much. So long as children are looked on essen- tially as the outcome of physical union, and men look down upon women, there can be no real social change, People must learn that all life is sacred and a gift of the good God; this is basic for social reforms. How the Moslems will develop this idea of the sacredness of life is a question. Islam is terribly lacking in spiritual values which are the springs of the life of human society. Life. has not much value for the Moslems. Murder has been # common thing. This habit will be a great handicap ` their future development. During the Armenian massacres there was a story “told by Moslems repeatedly which shows the Moslem mentality with regard to the value of the human life. Sometimes it was asked why the. Turks did Not differentiate between the guilty (if there were | any) and the guiltless in driving the Christians out ‘to the desert. Why should they send all, without dis- . } P
ve | MOSLEM MENTALITY G = Fnetion, to be killed, including women and chi L
r Fy site
who are merely helpless. The Moslems told a story from the life of the Prophet in order to justify their action. The Holy Prophet was sitting one day in a house with some people. (The Arabs don’t wear socks.) Some fleas came and jumped on his leg. One of them bit his holy leg! The Propet immediately put his hand on his leg, wiped off the fleas, and killed them all without distinction., There was only one flea probably which had bitten him, but he killed them all without distinction. This story was told many times by the Moslems. The simile is significant: persons have as much value as a flea only! You may kill one or a hundred at a time; it does not matter! What a con- trast with the spirit shown in the beautiful words of ~ Jesus: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and ‘not one of them shall fall to the ground without your - Father’; or, “Suffer the little ‘children to come unto - Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The whole social life must be sanctified by the permeation of a spiritual sense and moral responsibility in order to be firm and right. As the Moslems grow in their experience of social reforms, they are bound to con- sider Jesus and His attitude in all these matters. They cannot dispense with Him. |
g. The solidarity of humanity, and the fact of fellow- ship. The world is becoming one increasingly. The tragic events of the Great War showed that if one suffers, all shall suffer. The happiness of one depends upon the happiness of all, and the misfortune of one means the misfortune ofall. This is being realized more
EMPHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME ©
4 ynvre by the nations of the world. History shows L. vations have suffered much in the past, because of the lack of appreciation of this great fact of the soli- darity of humanity. Many great nations in the past have disregarded this in their administration, and have gone to destruction. Class. distinctions in all forms are against the real good of the peoples. This is a thing which was not even wholly realized by Aristotle and Plato. It has been the spirit of Jesus that has been working through past ages, teaching this great fact that men are one and they are the sons of the same Heavenly Father, and they all belong to the same family.
Islam fails to appreciate and to teach this fact of fellowship. About five years ago in one of the Turkish periodicals at Constantinople an article was published by an able Moslem writer on ‘“‘Bahaism as the Religion of Peace.” The writer passed judgment on different religious systems, testing them by this standard of fellowship. He tested Christianity also, and dismissed it by saying that the Christian Church in the past had committed great crimes; that it had cherished the spirit of war, and authorized. class distinctions (although he had nothing to say about Jesus Christ). Then he tested Islam, and judged it also as funda- mentally lacking in this idea of fellowship.
An authoritative writer on Islam like Emeer Ali, ae has spent much effort to spiritualize Islam and to i t ıt up to the highest ethical level, in his well-known tae > The Spirit of Islam, admits at least this much, that
w has seized the sword in self-defence ; and speaking
e
MOSLEM MENTALITY ié spirit of Islam as opposed to isolation and
tion, he underlines the following words of the Prophet: “Know that all Moslems are brothers of one another.” That is true, but one may well ask: “What about the non-Moslems? What are they?” Emeer Ali has no answer to give.
What is Islam’s goal for mankind? What is its teaching and spirit with regard to human relationships? That is the real question. Islam is based essentially on self-interest. The struggle for existence and the use of brute force is its principle in human relationships. Yet even in the animal kingdom this principle is not quite true. There is more love in the animal kingdom than we realize. Certainly this theory is not true in
' human relationships. Every society based on the principle of brute force is bound to end in destruction. How the Moslems can get rid of this habit of appealing to force, and learn to do things on the principle of good will, will be a most difficult question for them in the future. The Moslems are coming more and more to see this fact. Experience shows them that the world cannot be ruled by the power of the sword. There must be some other principle for human relationship ; other- wise, if you destroy your enemies, factions may arise from among your own community. The history of Islam is the best witness of this fact. How fundamentally different was the teaching of Jesus in this respect, and how sorely the Moslems are in need of learning of Him that meekness and lowliness of heart!
4. Faith in the central place of love in human hfe. Love! the most foreign thing to the Moslem rund.
MPHASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT TIME (Cr
zm the sense of love to the loveless; love sprin
at of a pure heart; love as self-sacrifice for your neighbour; love forgetting yourself, your superiority, your wealth, your position, and your own interests: that is quite foreign to Islam. There is charity in Islam, in the meaning of giving alms to the poor, but there is no teaching of love. I am not speaking about the individual lives of the Christians or the Moslems, but about Christianity and Islam as such. In Christ-
Janity there are many Christians whose life is a denial of love; but that is in spite of the Christian teaching. Moslems ignore the law of love, because the teaching of Islam is without it.
I know a missionary who was a great surgeon, and could make any amount of money if he used his skill for his own personal interest; but he gave his life
_ to the service of the people, the Moslems and the Christians, without any distinction, freely. His life has been a great puzzle to the Moslems, and all sorts of Opinions have been expressed by the Moslems con- cerning his life and service. But it was a very simple life to understand, if one knew of the inexhaustible love in his great heart toward men. But it was a puzzle to the Moslems, because they could”not imagine that it was possible for a man to sacrifice his interest and his fortune in the way of service to others. The most noteworthy thing surely. in the development of the Western civilization is this growing recognition of the
Principle of love as central in human relationships. All thé care of the sick at the hospitals, and the asylums, all the relief movements to help the poor and the
MOSLEM MENTALITY E
ly/all the efforts to modify the methods of war, ~the- greatest of all, to eliminate it from human life, are movements which acknowledge love as central in human life. It all goes back to Jesus, who lived this life of love and gave Himself for men while they were sinners. Christianity teaches that the most degenerate person out in the streets is.a brother for whom Christ died. The teaching and life of Jesus has surely been leavening human society in this respect. The Moslems will have to face this question and take Jesus into’ ~ consideration, because no social structure can be established without this cement of love holding every- thing together. | There is much discussion of social, economic, and financial questions in Moslem circles of the present time. All Moslem leaders agree in this, that their national life must have sound, economic, financial, hygienic, and social bases, but they forget the fact that all social and economic problems are largely at bottom moral and spiritual, and we cannot solve them except spiritually. Our conduct and attitude are deter- mined by our spirit, and our spirit depends upon the kind of religion we have; that is, on our idea of God. If a person believes in a god of atrocity and lying, he will þe atrocious and a liar. If a person has a monkey god, his conduct will be a monkey conduct. Our idea af God shows the type of our civilization. If the ground of the universe is hypocrisy, and the spirit dominant in the stars, in the flowers, in the whole of nature, is a spirit of caprice, human life will also be capricious. Then why should people concern themselves about
(cen HASIS NEEDED AT PRESENT: ran Sth and love at all? Atheism or Agnosticism T; forms is fundamentally a denial of truth and love
as the ground of the universe. In that case let us eat and drink, steal, rob, and be merry, because to-morrow we shall die. It is exceedingly important that men should think rightly of God, and learn what God is like. This is at the root of all human progress. Right religion is essential for any great civilization, for all sound progress. This is the real need of the peoples in the Near East, and especially of the Moslems. If hatred is to be changed into friendship, suspicion and fear into mutual confidence, envy into love, some spiritual power ought to be brought to bear upon these prob- lems; and that may come through a right understand- ing of God. The Moslems need this change and this spiritual power for their own good and for the good of humanity. Moslems are men and women with good resources of power, and I believe they have a great contribution to make to humanity. They are courageous and self-denying, ready to throw themselves into hardships, and to make sacrifices for a purpose; qualities which can, be utilized for the establishment ~ ofa good society. But these qualities have been directed to wrong ends, and stimulated by wrong motives, Surely Islam as a religion has been the chief cause of
. this misdirection and misuse of the powers of the Moslem peoples.
Islam as taught by their leaders has poisoned them with wrong ideas, and, appealing to their animal instincts, has led them into cruelties. Somehow this evil spirit must be taken out of the Moslem heart.
3 MOSLEM MENTALITY SL ¢ there is to be any real progress in Moslem 1
he people must be saved from the spirit of Islam. I have seen this spirit unvarnished during the Deporta- tion of 1915. At that time I was being sent under guard as a prisoner to a distant place beyond the Euphrates. One evening we lodged on the great plain
of Lurudj in Northern Mesopotamia. It was a summer day of September; the whole plain was burning with the terrible rays of the blazing sun. It was most diffi- cult even to get a little water for drinking. Upon this
_ desert plain one could see scores of groups of Armenian ‘women and children, forced to leave their homes on ~ the highlands of Anatolia, brought here into this desert place, and left under the burning rays of the sun without water or any shelter. They were all dying; most of them had even lost the energy to beg for bread or water. We lodged at a little distance, by the mosque of the small town. It was evening, and the time for worship at hand. People began to come and take their ablutions, getting ready for prayer. The Muezzin (crier) began to cry from the minaret, “Allah is great! Allah is great! Come to worship!’ I thought of the mockery of it all! Here there were thousands of innocent women and children left to die
so fiendishly, yet they were calling on the name of God and worshipping Him! That is the Moslem mind laid bare, and it must be changed for the good
of Moslems themselves and the good of humanity.
There has been a question in some people’s minds lately in the West whether under the present cir- cumstances Christian work ought to be continued in
4
PHASIS NEEDED AT PAT lm lands such as Turkey or not. This questi ws a lack of understanding of Islam and of the
actual conditions in Moslem lands. It is true that the missionary activity is entering into a new and difficult stage in Moslem lands. But the difficulty of the situation must constitute a reason not to withdraw, but to go ahead even more strongly, only with a new emphasis and new methods. The modern nationalistic tendencies in Moslem lands may make the present mis- sionary methods completely obsolete. But the Christian service must not be bound by the operation of the Christian institutions. We must learn from Jesus. He did not establish any institution, yet ventured to leaven the whole world. He did not organize men into a separate group with a special rite or creed, yet imparted a spirit that changed their whole attitude ~ to life. His concern was not to multiply His followers, but that men should come to know Godiin the right way. He called men to fellowship with God and men, and went about doing good. He did not give any book except His own life, or any legislation except that men should love one another. He had perfect faith in the - power of truth and love, and did not think of the support of any external authority. In a quiet and confident way, in the midst of all the difficulties and dangers, He exhibited the life of faith in God and love even to His enemies. ‘“The Son of Man must suffer and be rejected,” said He, believing that all men would ultimately come to Him. That was true, for no man can truly live, except by considering Jesus. The greatest need of the world to-day is to understand Jesus in a
MOSLEM MENTALITY ( T, Ww/way. I believe, as Christian men and wo
oslem lands, we are beginning to face such problems and difficulties as will oblige us to change fundament- ally our understanding of Christianity and to revise our methods. But let us not be alarmed! What may seem loss may be a great gain! Perhaps we shall just begin to serve rightly and’ efficiently in the name of Jesus our fellow-men. |
SL
‘CHAPTER X
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
THE new movements in the Moslem lands are really very significant. The political events may change, and there may even be reactions, but there are some new ideas and impulses which are working under- neath and permeating the whole world of Islam. In the past ages there have been great movements of masses of Asiatic peoples from the unknown areas of Central Asia toward the West. There are no such mass migrations now; but the intellectual, social, and religious movements of the present time are more momentous in their character and effect. The whole East, from China to Constantinople, is in the process of a great change, and nobody can tell what the outcome will be. The Moslems hold geographically the strategic position between Europe and the Far East, and surely the results of the Moslem transforma- - tion will affect the whole of mankind. If a spirit of hatred and animosity keeps dominating their mind as a result of this awakening, it will be a great calamity to the world. If, on the other hand, suspicion and jealousy can be changed into friendship and love, it will be a great blessing. That is the critical problem in Moslem lands.
But who will tackle this problem rightly and lead it to a right solution? Let us not expect that the political
MOSLEM MENTALITY ( I àes will solve it. They are dominated by
national interests, and even if they had good . intentions, they do not deal with the root causes. Political agencies deal with the current political events, not with the underlying movements, The chief task remains to be done by the Christian missionary and international organizations, and there are great oppor- tunities before them for service. Most of the Moslem lands are completely open for Christian work, and everywhere there is full freedom for personal contacts. The Moslem peoples show to-day an insatiable desire for. knowledge and education, and are ready to accept new ideas from the West. Thousands of pages of Moslem literature are being published daily in great centres, and are being sent to the remotest corners in country villages. These are wonderful opportunities, _. and provide adequate channels for Christian service. i Christianity has a great contribution to make in this Moslem transformation. First, we must make a new presentation of the Christian religion to the Moslems. Our presentation in the past has not been adequate, and has not spoken to the needs of the Moslem mind. Islam is a religion of external authority, based on the authority of a capricious Allah, or His Prophet, or His Holy Book; and our presentation. of Christianity also has been that of a religion of external authority, _ either of an Omnipotent God or an Infallible Church, or a legally interpreted Bible! Islam is a religion of laws and dogmas, and our presentation of Christianity also has been chiefly on the line of emphasizing laws and dogmas. Islam is a religion of power, based on
“SUMMARY AND. CONCLUSION
t¢a of overruling others by force; the tea -pristians on war, and their general attitude, surely not been very different from that. We have also acted and treated others on the principle of material power, and our teaching and conduct have been a denial rather than an assertion of the Christian faith in the use of spiritual forces. |
The world of Islam needs a new presentation’ of Christianity. We must speak to their condition, and - appeal to their best aspirations. The old-fashioned evidences, judging Islam wholesale, and presenting Christianity as a superior religion, do not appeal to their minds. Instead of dogma, we must begin with experience, and present Christianity as a Way of Life. We must show that religion as understood by Christ- lanity is not a negligible thing, but underlies all true life. We must base our message, not on the evidences of an external authority, such as the Church, or the Bible, or the Miracles, but on the inner needs and yearnings of the human soul. Man is incurably re- ligious, and we must show that it is impossibletodevelop completely as man without giving scope to that inner capacity for God. We must teach Christianity not as a new religion, but as the right attitude to life, as the light and the salt which enlightens all darkness and sanctifies all human relationships. |
The soul of the Moslem is restless at the present time. He has a sense of inferiority and is deeply jealous of his neighbours. He is passionate, and is driven to and fro, but does not find satisfaction, He is obsessed by an inner discord, and his whole outlook on life
MOSLEM MENTALITY
not normal. His Allah is a God of power, and |
{t beautiful quality of meekness; therefore the Moslem is ferocious in his dealings with others. He is - ‘a hard father in his home, a hard master in his busi- mess, and a hard ruler in his country. He is under the control of his passions.
The Moslem needs rest and peace in his soul. Islam has never harmonized powér and meekness. Mo- hammed always spoke of power and conquest; defeat was a disaster for him. It was Christ who said, “All power is delivered unto Me”; yet could say, “I am meck and “owly in heart.” It is for that reason that Mohammed cannot give rest to the seeking soul. The Moslem is seeking that rest, and Christianity must be presented as the supreme message of that peace in the human soul.
Islam has never faced the problem of evil. Neither the Moslem conqueror nor the Moslem ascetic have been able to overcome self. To give way to sensuality or to suppress our instincts does not solve the problem, Only Christianity has met evil squarely, and has dared to overcome it in the human soul. Christianity must be a message of deliverance from the bondage of sin and lust, into the liberty of goodness and love.
The unique thing in Christianity is Reconciliation: reconciliation in one’s own soul, reconciliation to our fellow-men, and reconciliation to all life. Christianity reconciles us in our souls, because it appeals to our inner feelings and brings them into harmony. It recon- ciles us to our fellow-men, because it takes away all hatred from our hearts, and makes us meek and lowly
e home of the Loving Father. Christianity is not a blind submission to the inevitable, but an exuberant joy and faith in God.
Thus we must present Christ, not as the fundis of a new religion along the line of other religions, with some new doctrines and mysteries, but as the revealer of a new life, the life of perfect reconciliation. Right relationships among men can only be established by making the spirit of Christ dominant in all spheres of life. If there is to be a new era of brotherhood among > men, it will be through a new recognition of the fatherly nature of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Islam lacks that basis for human brotherhood. The Christian loves all men, because he recognizes them all as children in God’s great family; he loves his — enemies, because he knows no person as_his enemy. There is the secret of the Christian life, and we must present Christ as the revealer of that supreme love, and as one who ventured to risk everything on the power of love. We must make it clear that our aim is not to increase the number of those who are called after the name of Christ, but to see all men become like Him in spirit and character.
But Islam needs something more. It needs the power of a true testimony in life to the Christian ideal. It needs the influence cf Christian men and women who will witness to those truths and principles of Christianity; men and women who will dare to live this life of love at all costs. They will not speak with
ae 24 MOSLEM MENTALITY | } he/condescension of a benefactor, who has got =
ving far superior and tries to impose it on others; but with all humility and lowliness of mind will exhibit this life of sacrificial love. They will live with the people and be willing to suffer, yet with an in- domitable faith in the transforming power of love, they will strive to leaven their whole life with a new spirit. I was conversing once with ;a young Moslem, and when I explained to him the Christian life, he turned suddenly and said: ‘‘But that would be a new creation! Impossible!’ That is our problem: the creation of a new spirit, and it can only be achieved through the creative power of love. The Moslem world needs
~ men and women who will be ready to pay the high price which the Christian life will cost them. The new world cannot be built by magic, or a sudden miracle: “Through much tribulation and agony ye shalt enter the Kingdom,” said the Great Master, and this is true for the sponsors of God in the Moslem world also.
When the missionaries in the Moslem ante the indigenous Churches in those fields and in the Christian countries are awakened, and uniting hand in hand shall walk on that path of faith and love, then will begin a new era in the history of the peoples of those bloodstained lands of the Near East.
As for my nation, we who have suffered most at the hands of the Moslems, we shall be witnesses to the truth of the experience that “We are pressed, yet not straitened ; perplexed, yet not in despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
A ec SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION QI A BR ‘yy bearing about in the body the dying of Jedud,
atthe life of Jesus may be manifested.” Surely we can say: “‘As dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”
As Armenians we have one privilege: we can forgive those who have persecuted us and pray for them.
INDEX
Abbasid Caliphs, 105 Abder-Raziq, 48
Abdullah Djevdet, Dr., 119-120 Abel Adam, 48, 56, 97 Abulfida, 120
Agha Oghlou Ahmed, 97 Agnosticism, 231
Agriculture, 218
Ahmed ibn Zain-al-Abidin, 190 Al Azhar, 92
Alladin, Sultan, 16
American College, 34. American Missionaries, 163 Anatolia, 15-16
Arabia, Source of Islam, 122 Arabic, Sacred language, 117, 118 Armenia, Massacres, 88 Asceticism, 65-66
Ashiq Pasha Zadé, 1 5
Atheism, 291
Bani Quraizah, 120
Banks, 218 sq.
Bible, 61, 67, 185, 187 §9., 267 sq., 236-237.
Black, Mr., 168
Caliph Omar I and II, 28 Caliph, Mad, of Egypt, 30 Caliphate, Abolition of, 47, 70-71 Caliphs, 27
Moral life of, 143
Orthodox, 105
Umayyad, 105 Calvin, 67 Catholic, Roman Church, 58 Christ—
Deity of, 191
Method of, 233
Christianity— Condemned by Moslets, 24-25 Doctrine, 200 sq. Influence on Islam, 164 sq. Moslem estimate of influence on progress, 65-67, 132 sq. Status of Christians in Moslem Law, 32-34. Chobanian, Mr. A., 163 Civilization, Christian, 80, 82 Concubinage, 35, 36 Constitution, Turkish, 74, 100 Constitutional Government, 111, 140 Coolidge, President, 136 Credit, 218 Crown Land, 34
Death-rate, Constahtinople, 224.
Deportations of Christians, 26, 34 233
Divorce, 35 sq. a
Djelal Nouri Bey, 56 sg., 66
Durkheim, 132
Djevdet Bey, 134
East and West contrasted, 49 sq., 62
Education, 51, 74, 86, 87, 91-99, I5I
Christian, 93, 151, 175
El Ghazali, 43”
Emeer Ali, 228
Emin Bey, 97, 116
Farmers, 218 sq. Fathers of the Church, 139
‘MOSLEM MENTALITY l of Sacrifices, 129 Laws— L
yáh, Holy, 39 Man-made, 32 _ Modern, 99-103
Greek Civilization, 65-67, 96, | Religious, 31, 32, 42, 59, 75, 83, 134-135, 140 110, 114, 118, 119, 124, 125 Western, 47, 62, 63 Hadith, 71 League of Nations, 55 Harun al Rashid, 29 Love, 217, 229, 239 sg.
Hejirah, gI Luther, 64, 67
Husein Souad Bey, 116
Hussein, Dr., 48 Mahmoud Es’ad Bey, [24
Marriage, 35 sq., 99, 148
pene naz Mecca, 41, 119, 129 Ns, Medresseh, 51, 52, 85, 91 Ibn Abidin, 24 Mehmed it en so Z poan Hilmi Bey, 113 Middle Ages, 66, 68 APN, Sheik, 157 Midhat Effendi, 197 D i TSU = Miftah-al-Asrar, 193
Aspects of, 125,
Effect of, 106
Origin of, 104
Spread of, 105 Ismail Hakky Bey, 112
Milan, Edict of, 139 Military Service, 2i—22 Millets, 4.7, 154 sq. Minorities, 88 sq. Mizan-ul-Haqq, 184
Ismail Safa, 86 Ismet Pasha, 87, 124 PAARA 57, 69; 1895" 120, Iyad bin Ghanam, 27, 33 Mustafa Kemal, see Kemal
l Mutawakkil 29 Jehangir, 190 $ Judaism, 212-21 3 Naima, 18 Justice, 101 Nationalism, 52 sg., 83-90, 127,
153
Ka’ba, 119 Nefi, 85 i Kalanos, 16 „| Nicene Creed, 199 3 f Karadjahissar, 16 Nietzsche, 66 ; Karshissar, 17 Kemal Mustafa, 48, 55, 91, | Omar, Covenant of, 27-31
126, 191 Omar IT, 28 Kemalist Government, 35 Osman, 15~16, 19, 63 Keuprule Zade Mohammed Fouad | Osmanlis, 23, 69, 84
Bey, 128 Ottoman State, 56, 57, 65
Kiafir, 15 sq., 60, 129 “| Koran, 19, 23, 24, 26, 28, 36, 40, | Personality, 98, 100, 117, 225-226 4%, 52, 63, 110, 117, 119, | Pfander, Dr., 184, 186 123, 127, 147, 179, 187 Sq., Polygamy, 35, 101 195, 207 59. Potter, Dr., 195
opketship, 208-209 Protestantism, 67, 169, 182
Questionnaire— To Boys, 126-127 To Leading Men, 127-128
Raihana, 120 Raqqa, 27 Reconciliation, 10,238 Refiq Bey, 20, 23, 102 Refiq Sidqi Bey, 70, 72 Reformation, 66, 67 Religion, Nature of, 210, 211 Renaissance, 66, 67, 96, 97, 116 Republic, Turkish, 49, 90, 99, 124. Reshad Nouri, Bey, 128 Revolution— French, 54, 132 Turkish, 48, 70, 73, 115 Rome, 52, 53, 65, 67, 96 Church of, 66, 140-141 Roots and Branches, 195 Rouse, Dr., 193
Sacrifices, 130 Sadwet Effendi, 71 Sarouyati, 16
5
INDEX á
34
Selim Surry Bey, 128 GI Seyyid Bey, 70
Shaykh Ali ’Abdur-Razzaq, 118 Solidarity, 217, 226 sq.
Souad Hanum, 133
Spinoza, Cardinal, 66
Sultanate, Abolition of, 47
Tabari, 25, 26
Taha Husayn, 118, 119 Tanzimat, 111
Tisdall, Dr. C., 184 Tradition, 50, 60 Truth, 44, 45, 178, 217
Umayyad Caliphs, 105 Union and Progress, Party of, 112 Usury, 220 sq.
West and East Contrasted, 49 5q., 62
Western Civilization, 65, 98, 112, 132, 134
Xavier, 190
Yahyia, 85 ri
Yenitcheris, 85 j
Zain-al-Abidin, Ahmed ibn, 190
P rg
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